


I Wanted It To Be You

by KendylGirl



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Anonymous Sex, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Pining, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-26 12:26:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20389690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KendylGirl/pseuds/KendylGirl
Summary: Armie is an accountant new to his neighborhood, but an unforgettable encounter at his housewarming party leaves him wondering if he'll ever find the happiness that he seeks.





	1. Preview Aesthetic

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Well, it's my birthday, so how about we have some fun and celebrate by embarking on a new journey together? It's as close to a party as I'll get! :)
> 
> When I began "Just My Luck," I'd planned out a few chapters of frivolity; that plan quickly evaporated because the characters had other ideas. This story has started with the same idea for some lighthearted fun, so let's see what these boys decide to do with it...
> 
> My profound thanks to Willowbrooke whose wisdom has kept me from stepping on multiple landmines and setting me on a better course. You are the best!
> 
> And to the incredible blueishdesire, the honor of being witness to your huge heart is the best gift that any person could receive!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deepest gratitude to charmie-inspiration for this!

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/185482045@N03/49056731898/in/dateposted-public/)


	2. The Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mnad96, you continue to inspire me; I give you the evolution of meta-smut. 😉

_It shouldn’t be this easy_. 

I remember thinking that.I remember feeling those words whisper through my brain in the fog of the night, the chatter of conversation and slow pulse of music not far away.

The whole night had been too much.Too much money spent on food, too much tequila in my veins, too much desperation to impress my new neighbors, to make them like me, to make this neighborhood feel like home.And it was a stupid dare.Shoving my hands into my pockets and falling backwards into the pool in the courtyard, emerging with bravado and a smirk, walking back through the grass and up the steps to the deck with a casual air, a cracked neck and a raised eyebrow, sauntering toward the door with rivers running from my denim jacket and jeans, bare feet making suction noises across the wooden planks, laughter and cheers thrown my way.Yanking off pieces as a I walked through my den, stripping in the hallway until I stumbled through the nearest doorway and into a bed and fell on my face into sudden oblivion.

A minute. That’s all I need.

I hate parties.

And then my head is lost among the overstuffed pillows, eyes glued shut by crust and sand.Too hot.Comforter bunched up against me.Where’d these fucking pillows come from??Stuffy.Sweat.Flail, kick off the sheet, flop onto my left side, stretch my arms against the cool cotton, reach out, lock my elbows.

A thud on the heel of my hand, a grunt.I am not alone.Another body, next to me, heavy, motionless.

There’s a sudden snuffle, a sigh.I almost mumble an apology.

Why aren’t I angry?I should be pissed, right?Party guests shouldn’t just invite themselves into the master bedroom.This isn’t what people do.What is this person thinking?

But all that blurs my mind in the intense darkness is curiosity.Attraction.I don’t even know why because this isn’t me.I don’t feel this way about people.I’m not magnetized by a presence, an aura.I don’t move on instinct.I never indulge, I’m never adventurous. 

Lightly, a fingertip.Two.Just along at the edge of the exposed shoulder blade.No more.Hunger pierces me, but I won't just _feed_.

“Armie?”

Familiar, deep down.Who are you?“Me, I’m…me.”Do you know me?Do you want me?My heart thuds.“Is it…I, uh…”I lick my lips.“Can I touch you?”

There’s a pause, then a noisy breath.“Is that what _you_ want?”

“Yes, I…yes.”_Want_.It chokes me, my body screams it, turns me inside out with it.

A rustle as the body shifts toward me, then a noisy breath, “God, I…that’s good because I’ve been…I mean, yes._Please,_ yes_…_”

My hands run down smooth planes of skin, a long fabric of silk wrapped around bone, cobbles of a curved spine that spill out into soft globes of flesh, an ass that my palms form to naturally, knead slightly, worship, separate with curious thumbs that crave the hot velvet inside, that get trapped in between when the form slides toward me.

“Tell me what you want.”My voice sounds rusty and foreign.“Tell me what to do.”

A rumble in the mattress, a groan he presses into it that vibrates my cheek, and the body shifts again, closer. 

“_Touch me_.”No hesitation.

I pull him into me with both arms, clutching madly at chest and hips and thighs._Him._A man, all man, but he’s so soft.Sinful, delicate.Good, so good.Why is this so good?I finger at the elastic band of his shorts, run my thumb along the rippled fabric at his waist, hear him whine, nearly a growl, before a swish as he yanks them down past his knees, swivels as he kicks them off.My body curves into him, and he grinds against me, flattening his back to my chest, circling his hips again and again._Fuck_.I can’t breathe.I don’t want to breathe.I want to crawl into his pores and live in his skin, every inch of it.Let me find where it starts, let me follow that road into you.My left hand skirts his throat, squeezes, across a nipple like the rounded trigger of a pen.A fingertip dips into his navel.Pressure there, and he shudders, goose flesh blooms, spreads to my skin.

My other hand digs into the thick hair of his groin, raking through it, winding it around the tips of my fingers, swirling it then pressing it flat with the heel of my hand, a slow drag back until my fingernails hit skin, dig into the crease and he shudders, lengthens his legs to open himself further, offer me more.

_Please_.It’s a chant now, inhale and exhale, gas to the fire.

I fold my fingers around his length one at a time, relish its weight, its density, let every digit pass the tip, caress it, let it welcome them, wet them until they drip and his head flings back against my shoulder.I tease him, keep him on the edge, work him slowly as my cock slicks his legs, slides easily between his clenched thighs, pulling me in.We move together, everything together, his chest expanding with mine, rocking into and away.Don’t rush it, thrust with purpose, intensity.This is me.I claim, I need, I give.I was made for this.He was made for me.

My face falls forward, against the back of his neck, and I inhale deeply, hold it until my lungs burn.He smells like my favorite t-shirt, my favorite pillow, myself.I lick his skin, taste summer and sea salt and the dust of a comet, taste myself there.

_Yes.God, yes_. 

The echo of those words makes me bite down hard, anchor my teeth in his muscle, let my moans vibrate directly into him, and with a sudden gasp, he lets go, throws his hips forward, muscles taut, comes hard, scalds me, covers my hand, my wrist, my soul.I want to rub it in, let it hold my cells together, let it freeze me in this moment for the rest of my life.Give it to me, all of it.I want it, I want you. 

I chase after him, his slick skin, his hand that grabs my hip to keep me there, to help me, to show me how.His thighs shift, his head turns slightly, brushing my cheek with a satin that must have been his lips and his hair, rubbing me in one direction as I move in the other, a whimper, and I can’t hold back anymore.I feel the pulsing, know I’m spilling all over him, between his legs, across his ass, into the indentation in the mattress where his body lies.

My arms tighten around him, and something is between my lips, a soft dollop that could be his earlobe.I should say something, I should tell him to stay, tell him that I need him, tell him that I don’t do this, that he is special.I should warn him that I fall hard, and when I know, I know.I should open my eyes.

But I’m warm in here, and I’m safe in here, and I’m satisfied in a way I haven’t been for eons._Can you hear that?Do you know me?Take what you want.It’s yours_.And all I know to do is to cross my arms around his waist, kiss his shoulder, let the roar of waves in my skull wash me away.

* * *

I twitch my head, roll it on the pillow. 

Big mistake.

Behind my eyelids I see red, so I know the morning light fills the windows at the opposite end of the room.Let it.I’m going to stay here in the dark.Go away.

Somewhere distant, I hear the muffled sound of a door closing.

My eyes pop open, and I stare up at the white ceiling fan, turning slowly but doing nothing to cool the space.I’m in my guest room.How did I get here?I scrub my hands over my face, grab tight around my temples, exhale into my palm.Jesus, my breath is rank.Have I slept here in the open air for a week and gone stale, or what?

I drag myself up on my elbows and look around.My eyebrows dip.I’m naked, not much of a shock there.Pajamas are for wintertime and loneliness.But my boxers and the salmon shirt I’d worn last night lay across the arm of the small chair in the corner, neatly folded.No way in hell I’m the one who did that.

When I turn to flop my legs over the edge of the mattress, I slide through a spot of tacky wetness.“What the—“

And I choke as the night floods back, all of it, every second.Shitshitshitshitshit._Holy shit._It was real.It was _real_.I stumble to my bedroom and throw on dirty clothes from the laundry basket, head to the kitchen.The wet clothes I’d stripped off had been removed from the hallway, laid over a towel hung on the back of one of the chairs lining one side of the island.An open garbage bag sits next to it on the floor, full of paper plates and Solo cups.I press the button on the espresso machine and hear the whir of the beans grinding somewhere inside of it.

I look around the family room, survey the damage left behind.I loved the open floor plan of these condos, how easy that would make entertaining friends or clients.Lots of space, lots of light.Lots of places for people to drop cracker crumbs and hunks of carrot and wads of napkins.Adults are only marginally more polite than college kids.Someone had tried to help clean up, but there was a lot still to do.

Plenty of mess means plenty of aspirin for me to gulp down before I can face it.It’ll have to wait until later.

I grab my mug, drop my face over it and inhale the steam from the liquid, slide open the glass door and go out on the deck.It’s still early enough that the chill air counters the sunlight.I slump down in my chaise and take a gulp of coffee, cradle the cup against my stomach and watch the neighbor’s cat stalk a chipmunk.A few minutes later, the cat scuttles inside when its owner stomps out onto her deck to water her flower pots.We exchange a wave.“Hi, Armie!Thanks for having all of us over last night.We’ll have to do it again soon!” she calls, and I just smile and nod, raise my cup in response.Please don’t come over, I pray silently.I can remember the cat’s name is Stella, but the name of Stella’s enthusiastic owner is in somewhat of a grey area, and I’d not like to have to add “terrible with names” to the growing list of my many missteps.But the condos in the development are free-standing, so there’s just enough space between the units to let me breathe.I lay my head back against the cushion and close my eyes.

Last night was a first for me.

I’ve never been overwhelmed by a moment like that.Booze does not make choices for me.I rarely drink, so alcohol has never been able to make me do anything more than sleep.But maybe it did help shred some of my fears before they had a chance to bind me into knots and let pass _that _moment, that one incredible moment.Because I’m not that kind of person.I’m not the kind of person who just _does_, who feels it and lets the universe work its magic.That sounds risky, careless, and I’m a goddamn _accountant_, a man who works with rational numbers and a balance sheet.I don’t do things that are reckless and impulsive.I don’t _do_ magic.

Some alarm should have rung, some recognition that I should’ve stopped, looked around, thought clearly._Ruined it_.I don’t know why that never happened. Ruin is my specialty. Ruin is where I excel.

Now I’ve probably ruined my reputation in this neighborhood before I’ve even made my first mortgage payment.Everyone has to know by now, right?Whispers, rumors, gossip.I hate that shit.And I know how these things work.Stories grow bigger fangs the more mouths that tell them, primed to puncture a jugular and let your reputation bleed out into the gutter.Is that what awaits me?Am I now going to be known as “that guy”?Until the end of time, I will be branded as that loser who bagged out on his own housewarming party and had sex with someone down the hall from a room full of his guests, leaving all of them to trickle away on their own as night turned into day._Wonderful.Nice work, jackass_.

I sigh, take another drink, swallow hard.

That’s not what’s bothering me.Not really.

I still feel his hand on my hip, long fingers digging into the bone.I still smell his hair, taste his skin, feel the expansion of his lungs as my own settles to match it.

I want him, I still want him.

And I have no idea who he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well?? Okay so far??
> 
> This was set this off by the combination of a dream I had and whatever photoshoot produced the picture of a soaked and fully-clothed Armie falling into a swimming pool. I sure hope it's intrigued you enough to want to continue!


	3. Happy Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armie tries TGIF.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A month? A MONTH?? I can't believe that much time has passed since the first chapter, so I REALLY hope you are still with me! 
> 
> There aren't enough cheers in the world to offer to Willowbrooke for ironing out the wrinkles in the fabric of what I send her. Simply the best!

One week.

For one week, I’ve kept my head down and made doubly sure to walk straight and stay inside the lines.My trash cans have been one foot from the curb exactly; my door light clicked off at precisely 9 p.m., just as regulations insisted.I’ve not played my music too loud, and I paid my association fee three days early.

I’ve been good.

At least I _wanted_ to be good.

When the mechanisms of habit become his survival, Armie Hammer will shine.Numeric precision is where his professional acumen actually benefits him outside the office.He can weather this storm, and he’ll do it with weeded landscaping and an inconspicuous hose reel, a spotless cork doormat to cushion the stoop and a newspaper tube in perfect alignment with a mailbox, both dutifully emptied before dusk.These are the instruments of battle in the great suburban war for conformity and acceptance, and I the eager soldier who refuses to succumb to defeat.

_Dear Sirs,_ _Armie will drive under the speed limit, and when he reaches an intersection, he will come to a complete stop_._Amen._

I realized the many figurative terrors of this mindset at the moment I realized I had begun to think of myself in the third person.What’s next, skulking around after midnight in my own front yard, trying to see through the slits in the blinds, watching someone else sprawl in the center of my bed, flopping over in his sleep and reaching out, trying to feel the creamy skin at the tips of his fingers, the give of it, registering the swish of the sheets as his legs fall open and his hips arch toward empty air?Just how far am I willing to go to distance myself from what had happened, from what I knew I wanted? 

_Use caution._

_Move slowly, freeze up.Get stuck_.

_Die alone_.

How was that going to taste in a month, two months?Would everyone forget by then?Would I?

I stare at the flyer on the countertop like it has personally offended me, loosen my tie with two blunt fingers shoved into the knot, wrenching at it until I can undo a couple of shirt buttons.I’d stayed late at the office again, trying half-heartedly to work out how one of my clients, a history professor, possibly could write off crazy glue and $40,000 worth of Spanx as business expenses.Really, I’ve stayed late every day this week, re-evaluating portfolios and stripping files and answering pointless emails until building security would get fed up with me triggering the motion sensors, just filling my time up to the rim any way I could.I swear, one more day of this and I’d resort to vacuuming the office and sanitizing the phones._Anything_ to convince myself that I am too busy for _this_, too swamped to show up at something called “TGIF in the Tropics” and hope I fit in, too important to care if my new neighbors think me rude or thoughtless, too petrified to find out.

Fuck it.Who needs that, right?Not me.Nope.I don’t need everyone to like me.I’m fine.Think what you want, people.Just leave me in peace.

I grit my teeth, rip open the fridge and pull out a bottle, crack off the cap with a calculated thunk against edge of the counter, watch it bounce across the wood floor.

Guzzle the contents in one go.

Slam the empty bottle down, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

_Oh yeah, _this is man-style now!

I guess I should hold off on the chest thumping and spontaneous push-ups, though.It’s just a Diet Coke.Caffeine-free.My usual.

I sigh heavily and close my eyes, let time slow itself to a fat crawl, listen to the tick of the clock on the mantle behind me wind down and stretch thin, the hum of the air conditioner that kicks on with a low growl, like it knows it needs to fill up the night with something more than the distant thump of my heart’s tired beat.

I already know I’m going.

I already know I don’t want to hide out here with a tube of Pringles and the television remote, clicking buttons and watching images of life flicker across the screen because _that _is the only way I will ever get to experience them, because the only way life can be invited into this space, into my world, is when it is false and contained within a two-dimensional box hanging on the wall.I didn’t move into this neighborhood so I could pretend I live alone on an island.

If it is one thing that I know from examining tax codes, it is that a person needs to act before a loophole closes, before the rules change and the opportunity that was there dies in silence.That kind of loss will drain you, bleed you, hurt in quiet places for years to come.

Silent ache.That’s my territory.

And I try, I really do.I try desperately to quiet the tiny niggle in the back of my head, the one that won’t let me rest, the one that thinks _he_ might be there, that he might be thinking about me, that he might be seeking me, too.It’s a stupid fantasy, one I don’t believe in.Only fools allow themselves to dream in the daylight.I’m not allowed the luxury.I live in the real world.I live in the dark.

But maybe, just maybe.

* * *

The music curls out of the door ahead of the amber light, a pleasing smooth jazz that can absorb the silence and not overwhelm the buzz of chatter.I pause before I go in, shove up the sleeves of my tan sweater.Tug them down again.Shove them back up, run a numb hand over my face.Should I have shaved?I flick a lightning bug from the hem of my cream shorts, wondering what possessed me to tempt fate by wearing a garment guaranteed to announce my underwear choices to the general public should they happen to get wet._Been there, done that_.

Here we go.

The pool house feels like the jewel at the heart of the necklace of real estate that spreads around it in a notched kidney of the smooth asphalt road.As far as I can tell, it is the all-purpose location that suits parties and condo association meetings alike, built like a mountain lodge with thick wood beams anchoring it and its panes of tinted UV glass.

A man with a black and white checked blazer waves one arm at me like he’s trying to flag an airplane.“Well, look who’s here! Glad you could make it, buddy!”

My smile is reflexive.“Thanks.Good to see you.”I have no idea who he is.

“Hey, man!” Some guy in a bowling shirt, dark hair already deserting him in two deep triangles on either side of his scalp though he can’t be much more than 30. He fist-bumps me. _Sorry, you either._He steps into my path before I can sidestep him.“Pool’s open—you planning on taking another dive?”He snorts at his own wit, clinks bottles with a guy in pleated khakis standing nearby, who also turns toward me with a broad grin.

I give them both a smirk, scratch at my hairline with my thumb.“Tempting as that is, think I’ll have to pass.”I lift my palm to gesture toward the door.“You’re welcome to, though.Go on—take a long walk off a short pier.Seriously.I mean, this can’t be the first time someone’s wanted you to disappear underwater.”I wiggle my eyebrows at them. 

Both guys erupt with some raucous laughs.Pleats points finger-guns at me; Bowling Shirt throws me another fist bump.Must be too confident to think it an insult or too drunk to really care.I’m good with that.

I crack my neck, exhale quietly through my mouth.All right, so the first wave has struck, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared.Hell, I can take a joke.Pretty sure I’d be lobbing them at me, too, were the situation reversed, so maybe I’ve overreacted this whole week, throwing myself into a tailspin for no damn reason.Hardly a surprise.Maybe I can actually relax a little.Maybe things really are fine after all. 

“Armie!” I recognize Carol’s voice, see her weaving through the bodies to get to me, her frilly fuchsia blouse the perfect compliment to the bob of silver hair. She and her husband Mike live two houses down.Carol is the real estate agent who sold me my home here, and she has a frank, no-nonsense demeanor that had won me over instantly.They’ve welcomed me from the start, made me feel like an old friend—the son she never had, Carol had once declared, even though the pictures on her mantle suggests she’s already got one.I had pointed that out to her, but she’d just flapped her hand and scoffed, “Brian’s my daughter’s husband.He smells his armpits at the dinner table.”

“And so do the rest of us.”Mike had floated in from the next room on the way to the deck.“So, hey, welcome to the family, kid!”

The whole party last weekend had been Carol’s idea, her assurances that all would go well convincing me to go through with it, and her potential disappointment in me after my vanishing act some of the prime fallout that I feared.And if she is angry at me, I have no doubt she’d let me know it in no uncertain terms.

I smile at her hesitantly as she approaches, my greeting of, “Hey there, Carol!” squeaking out a good octave higher than my normal voice, bracing for an onslaught.But she just throws one arm around my neck, and I bend so she can give me a kiss on the cheek before taking a gulp of the beverage she’s holding in her opposite hand, a tropical mixture the color of watermelon guts.

“About time you got here!” she announces, swatting my shoulder and planting her hand on the hip of her white jeans.“Where’ve you been hiding out?”She has just a trail of southern drawl in her voice, and I wonder why I never noticed it before.

“Sorry, I, uh…I had to work late.”I clear my throat. 

Her eyes narrow a little.“Mmmhmmm.”I start to sweat a little under her scrutiny, drop my eyes down to where the crafted half-moons of her fuchsia toes peek out from the tips of her wedge sandals.“Sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m just…I mean, it’s…”I glance back up and am relieved to see nothing but genuine concern curving the lines of her face, and I sag a little.“It’s just been a very long week.”

“You got girl problems or something, sugar?”

I wince.“_Girl_ problems?Ah, no, that's not…no.”

She studies me for a few more seconds, then abruptly grabs my elbow.“Come on, you need something to drink, young man.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I follow in her wake as she moves back through the crowd.The room is cavernous.There are several arranged seating areas, puffy white cushions atop teak frames; a couple of pool tables covered in blue felt off to one side, a sandy horse shoe pit to the other.The back of the room is an enormous glossy bar with a full kitchen behind it.All told, it is a veritable shrine to entertainment, something these residents apparently have not left to chance, and that’s without even dipping a toe in the Olympic-sized chlorine ocean outside.

She slaps the bar with a flat hand, and the guy in the Steelers jersey drying glasses with a white towel raises his eyebrows.She ticks her head toward me and winks at him, “Sex on the Beach for my friend here, Sal.”

I choke.“What did you…_excuse_ me?”

She pinches me. “Relax, kid, it’s a tropical theme night.Trust me, you’ll like it.It’s mild…fruity.Perfect for you.”

“Gee, thanks.Thanks a lot.”

“Oh, cut it out, I just know you’re not much of a drinker, that’s all.Besides, judging by that scowl on your face, you could use something fun, and this is fun in a cup!”

“I’m not scowling,” I grumble, half to myself, but I know it’s a lie.I entered the room in defense mode, and most of me is still on alert.Sal slides a tall glass toward me, and I gaze down at the vivid concoction.“I don’t like cherries all that much.”

Carol rolls her eyes at me.“Look, no one cares if you don’t want to pop a cherry, Armie.”She plucks the garnish off the rim of my glass and tosses it in her mouth.“But if you’re a guy who maybe enjoys the cleft of a good ripe _peach_, then down the hatch.Everyone has their flavor, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re all delicious.”

Our eyes meet, and she waits for me to catch up, to scramble up the rungs of the ladder she’s extended for me.When I finally do, I feel the red creep up my neck in a prickly wave, and I bury my face in the top of my glass.“Okay.Thanks,” I mumble, twirling the glass, letting the cubes clink around in it.She squeezes my shoulder and chuckles.For a moment, I wonder if I should just confess it all to her, tell her everything that happened at the party, let her unapologetic tongue lash at me, shape up the rogue parts of my brain that I’ve let fall into disarray.But I keep quiet, let the moment pass while our eyes scan the room together, taking in the artful tableaus of chit-chat and competition, the glitter of laughter and the thunk of metal against padded turf.

“This is good,” I conclude, motioning vaguely with my drink.

“Knew you’d like it if you gave it a chance.”

I glance at her, and I can tell from her smirk, from the slow nod of her head, she gets that I’m not really talking about the beverage.

I get lost in the sea of faces, some of which seem familiar but are still too new to slide into place next to their names. I notice a couple of guys with their heads angled together, eyeing me while their lips move mutely.One is a tall redhead who lives at the end of my street who clomps through dew-laden grass in his bedroom slippers to get his morning paper, the other a fit blonde whose scalp likely would not even reach the level of my armpit.He’s raking over me like I owe him money, just before he winks at me, throws me an up-nod that’s more directive than invitation.Yeah, I’m giving that one a hard pass.I play dumb, smile and offer a small salute, let my gaze drift away as if it never happened.

Can _he_ really be here?Amid the odd loners like me, the boyfriends, the husbands.Can any of these guys really be the one who captured me so entirely, who yanked me out of my tidy, predictable spiral and shifted my orbit to a distant, unseen star?The one whose breath left tracks on my skin, smooth patches where the dead sloughed off and I was born again, whose hands could hold all of me—past, present, and future—in one solid, supple grip?

Oh, God, what if the reason why no one’s gossiping, the reason no one’s blabbed to a neighbor about what happened that night, is that he was cheating on a spouse?That my one perfect moment is someone else’s dirty little secret?What would I do if he’s not merely afraid, but ashamed?What if he already belongs to someone else?

There’s a snap, a living branch cracked from the forest canopy.

A break shot._New game_.

I pivot around to where a fresh round of pool has started at one of the tables, a smattering of people clutching sticks, taking dance steps around the field of colored balls until the perfect angle comes into view.A woman in a plaid shirt and Daisy Duke’s lays across the top rail and takes aim, face beaming an arc at her opponents when her shot sinks into the corner.

He’s standing behind her in a dark sweater that clings to his shoulders and sags at his waist, but it is gathered to one side so that a plain white t-shirt peeks out at his hipbone, enough of his wiry frame outlined to suggest its subtle strength.He’s holding the chalk to his cue, rounding it in patient circles while the girl paces out her next shot, his eyes meandering over the landscape of the table, making plans of their own.He pulls one of his dark curls around the shell of his ear, tucks it back with several vicious swipes, only to have it pop back over his forehead the moment he lets go.

The girl tosses her head and says something, and he laughs, _all_ of him laughs with a glint of teeth, the flicker of hands on his cue, a shift of his hips as they absorb the energy and send it back up to his face.

_Who is that?_

“Oh, that’s Tim.Tim Chalamet.”I startle, not realizing I’d said the words aloud until Carol’s voice pokes through the haze.

I watch as he rubs his hand over the back of his neck.“Does he live here?”

“He does now.He’s been staying at his sister’s place while she’s overseas.Not sure how long he’ll be here.And she’s a pistol, let me tell you…”

_Tim_.He had been at the party, I’m certain of it, though I can’t say why.It’s not as if any of the conversations I had that night could escape the murky water of my subconscious mind.I think he may have left early.In the cluttered mosaic of images from the party, I’m pretty sure he disappeared before I was persuaded to make The Plunge.At least he had been spared my downfall.

But I know him, don’t I?He seems so familiar.We _had_ to have spoken.

“Does he—“

And that’s when he looks up, right at me, finds my eyes immediately, like they were exactly where he’d left them, pinned to the wall.His gaze is something I’ve never felt before because it’s not just vision at work.Somehow he’s speaking to me, the way his eyes vacillate, their pixels of colored electrons that make it seem we are moving closer together and farther apart, like he’s picking up the thread of a conversation that I need to remember but can’t quite recall, my end frayed, unraveling even as his expressive face twines emotions, patterns on a wheel of possible outcomes, and I’m dizzy with it.I can’t keep up.I feel myself teeter, an axis shift.

_Stop_.

Abruptly, he cuts the line, licks his lips and turns away, one hand tucking under his chin, fingertips puckering his collar as they curve and dip beneath it.His chin bumps his hand as he ducks his head and shuffles around the table, out of view, behind a giant ficus and the red and white doughnut of a decorative life preserver affixed to a temporary divider.

Blindly, I squeeze Carol’s arm and edge away to follow the path, trying to keep him in my field of vision before he disappears in the gulf created by the muzzy current of people and things.Maybe make my way over.Maybe say hello.

I’m slow.Circumspect.Wouldn’t do to rush at him, creep him out.But by the time I make my way around, he’s already gone.The pool cue he’d held is abandoned against the rack of all the rest. 

Figures.

I know him, though.

_No, you don’t_.

My eyes sink closed._Slow learner_.Why do I do this to myself?I so willingly invite disappointment in, always eager to see shapes in the clouds of even the bleakest skies.I’ve always hated this part of me, tried so hard to exorcise it amid the dulling chants pressed into my ears by the everyday world, but I’ve never been able to stop being the pessimistic optimist who doubts that the good stuff will happen, but still waits breathlessly for it to occur.

Dream and hope.

Hope and burn.

I don’t see how friends and relationships can fit inside the downward slope of those verbs, find slivers of life in the cracks between them and breed something as delicate as happiness.I doubt I ever will.

But I think I want to, somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the Armie look I had in mind here: https://nypost.com/2018/07/06/sure-men-can-wear-shorts-but-should-they/
> 
> A Sex on the Beach is an alcoholic cocktail containing vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice and cranberry juice. A cherry or an orange slice might be a garnish.
> 
> "Daisy Duke's" are super-short shorts, so named for that character's attire in the dubious mid-1980s television series _The Dukes of Hazzard._
> 
> Speaking of dubious television shows, Mike and Carol? Heh heh. Don't worry--no Wesson oil will be harmed in the writing of this story. :)


	4. Running Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Armie cross paths once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sure there is a way to properly apologize for having left this story hanging for so long, but I do not have any idea to phrase it, so I'll just say I'M SO SORRY! PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE STILL OUT THERE!
> 
> My ongoing Timmy-bow of respect to Willowbrooke for her superior word-wrangling skills!

I throw the car into park and press the button to cut the engine, exhaling slowly in the sudden quiet, hands still gripping either side of the wheel.

The week had unfolded in the placid grandeur of nothingness and routine. I’d survived TGIF and had let Carol mother me into a degree of peace that the neighborhood was not conspiring against me, poised to oust me for crimes against suburbia. I was still no closer to finding my own answers, but at least it seemed that my neighbors were not waiting on my doorstep posing more questions.

I stare through the windshield and watch Ted, the elderly man across the street, amble out to his mailbox in his bathrobe to grab his newspaper, carrying his cane in one hand instead of using it to steady his way. Ted is angular, well over six feet tall, and I suspect that he must’ve been a football player or a weightlifter many decades ago. Today, though, he is hobbled with arthritis and osteoporosis and whatever else besets a man when the vigor of youth ceases its spark within him, and gravity creeps in to take over. _ All of that energy wasted_, I think vaguely. All of that effort he must’ve spent to protect himself from harm in the hopes of living a better life—in the end, all of it was for nothing.

Is that what happens to people, then? Lift and run, scrimp and save, just to watch your fortress crumble when Mother Nature comes to collect, her Grim brother standing by the curb holding your greatcoat open with bony fingers, an awful smirk on his face? 

‘Never take a chance’ is the unspoken code of the cautious, one I have subscribed to wholeheartedly for most of my life yet managed to forget in a single moment at that party. But life has a way of reminding us of our limits, doesn’t it? Never sit in the sun and feel its warmth for fear of getting cancer, never jump in the river and feel its energy for fear you’ll drown.

Never let yourself feel joy lest it turn to pain.

Ted gives me a smile and waves at me with his cane. It’s like he’s offering it to me. Or preparing me for it. I nod and wriggle my fingers back without bothering to let go of the steering wheel.

_ Dream and hope. _

_ Hope and burn. _

In the midst of these verbs, I had forgotten that when hope and burn collide, they smolder, a long slow flame that glows red until every bit of fuel has been extinguished.

I sigh and roll my head on the restraint, and it’s then that I see something moving down the street, a jogger. I squint hard, register the flop of curls which scrape over the dark Wayfarers with every stride.

Holy shit, it’s him. The pool player from the party.

_ Tim_.

I didn’t even get to say hello to him the other night, but somehow, I’d know him anywhere.

My hands melt from the wheel and onto my seat belt, fumble with the latch while I jab the button to pop the hatch. I throw open the door and stumble out onto the driveway, flopping my hands around like flippers to straighten my shirt and flatten my hair. _ What are you doing? Just relax, you moron. Don’t scare him off again_.

I circle back and dive into the hatch to grab a bag, angling my neck so that I can keep one eye on the road through the side window, watching him trudge closer. He’s in a saggy white tee and forest green sweats, digging lazily into the asphalt with white high tops. 

When he draws nearly parallel with my front yard, I stand tall, casually shuffle around the side of the car. Okay…what now? Check the mailbox? Kick the shards of mulch back into the landscaping? I suppose I could drop the bag, let my grapes and green peppers be the sudden roadblock to make him stop.

_ Idiot_.

As he nears, I can see his shoes are untied. The strings hang loose like the cords of his earbuds which frame his cheeks and disappear up into the dark shake of hair. Who runs with unraveled laces? A smile ripples across my lips.

I shift the bag to one arm and raise my free hand to wave. “Hey…Tim?”

He immediately turns his head and slows. His mouth drops open slightly, though he does not appear to be breathing particularly hard. I wave again, shuffle forward a couple of steps.

I see his throat ripple as he slows to a jaunty walk, tugging the buds out of his ears which bleed a fuzzy cacophony of some rap song that I’d never be able to identify. “Hey…Armie, hi…” he replies, voice breathless, like he has accelerated his pace, not stumbled to a stop in the stray gravel of the berm. “How…” another swallow, “how are you?”

Relief warms my blood. _ So I was right! We _ do _ know each other_. I feel my smile tick wider, loosened by the way he fumbles his phone to turn the music off and momentarily gets the cords of his buds stuck in his hair when he tries to rip them off to stuff them in his pocket. It’s a sort of kinship in the subtle plague of perpetual awkwardness. 

I’m not good at this, making friends. I never have been. But I try to remember the look we’d exchanged at the tropical party, the expression in his eyes that had been deep and open and kind, the one that had tried to talk to me before I was able to listen. It makes me braver.

“I’m good, I’m good. Not nearly as ambitious as you, though. I really need to start running again.”

Tim’s cheeks pink up, and he shoves his sunglasses up to the top of his head, sending his curls into a wild halo. “Yeah, I…I mean, I’m not…I just thought I’d give it a try, but…” His gaze drops to his own feet. “I don’t exactly have the gear, do I?” he chuckles, sticks his thumb under the collar of his t-shirt and pulls it up to wipe his mouth.

I wave my hand. “Aw, that doesn’t matter. You could be a sad fucker like me and have your big exercise of the day be dodging hand-sown hemp grocery bags at Whole Foods.”

When I see his eyes suddenly crinkle at the edges, I add, “It’s deadly there, especially if they’re running low on vine-ripened tomatoes. Trust me, you do _ not _ want to know what kind of language a vegan will use when he can’t properly make his seitan, lettuce, and tomato sandwich,” and when his toothy grin overtakes him, I add, “Should those guys really be wearing leather sandals, though?”

Tim’s body shakes with laughter, a shimmer of elbows and black curls.

I feel like I’ve won the Heisman trophy.

He notices me shift the bag higher in my grip, then cranes his neck around to see the open trunk. “Hey, can I help you take your stuff in? I don’t want all of your wild adventures to have been for nothing.”

I smile and crook my head. “Sure! Yeah, we can’t let the spoils of war spoil in the sun.” He hooks his sunglasses to his shirt and follows me to the back of the car to grab the remaining two bags, one in each fist, and I shut the trunk and lead the way to the house.

I hear him shuffle around inside the front door, and I turn my head to say something stupid like _ It’s right through here! _ as if he had hesitated out of confusion when all of these condos have the same basic floor plan, and of course he would know where the kitchen is. But he has only paused to slide out of his shoes and leave them next to mine by the door.

It’s just such a minor thing, but for reasons I can’t explain, it nearly makes me tear up with gratitude. _ He gets me_.

We plunk the bags onto the island in the kitchen, and I grab the milk and open the fridge, turn back to Timmy and ask, “You thirsty? Want some cold water?”

“Sure, that would be great.”

I toss the bottle to him, and he rushes forward with both hands raised to catch it, and I don’t know if it’s from fear that he’ll drop it or fear he’ll be knocked unconscious if he attempts a suave one-handed grab. It pangs something inside me. I don’t know how many times I’ve lost in the gamble of trying to pull off the latter, in one iteration or another.

And I feel it from him in quiet waves, feel it like it is my own uncertainty, my own need, so I look away, slide a box of crackers and jar of blackberry jam into the cupboard so that he’s safe to hide in that pocket of anonymity if he needs to, as I always want to.

He twists the lid off and turns to look at the living room, wanders over and leans against the back of the couch, takes a long drink. “So, are you finally all settled in here?”

I fold up one of the empty bags. “Yeah, pretty much. It was quite an adjustment from my old place.”

“How’s that?”

“I used to live in an apartment, a twinplex.” I take a water out for myself and come around the island, sink onto a stool. “I had one neighbor—a retired high school principal who would yell at the birds for shitting on his car. He never spoke more than five words to me the entire time I lived there.”

“How long was that?”

“Three years.”

Tim giggles, “Maybe _ you _ should’ve shit on his car.”

“I thought about it. It was an ’82 Impala, so it would’ve actually increased the value of the damned thing."

We share a laugh, and he spins on his heel, hitches up his sweatpants as he pads around the room. I take a few swallows of water while he scans my bookshelf with an index finger, and I wonder which titles he likes, wish randomly I’d vacuumed before going to the store.

In a sudden flash I see him standing in that exact spot at the party, at the edge of a small group who were talking with their hands, one thrusting a handful of pretzels in the air, the other sloshing her drink. He’d looked over at me by the island where I had sat by myself on this very stool, and his eyes had widened, a mute plea for help. I remember smiling back, chuckling as he’d grimaced and taken a deliberate sliding step away from the chaos of the others. 

I remember that I had been about to motion him over, to offer him another drink, ask him his name. I remember that we’d passed each other a few times earlier in the evening, exchanging a few stumbling pleasantries. There had been something about him I’d been drawn to_. _ Perhaps it had been his contradictions: he’s obviously handsome but had seemed self-conscious in the swipes he’d continually taken at his hair or the tugs at his shirt; he’s friendly and personable, but had seemed uncomfortable in the crowd of bodies and repeatedly had found his way to the edge of the action.

All of that had felt comfortable to me, so achingly familiar.

But before I could act, a hand had fallen on my shoulder and a suggestion was tossed around the room for me to baptize myself in the swimming pool to launch an official neighborhood tradition, and I’d found myself being ushered outside. I didn’t see him after that.

Tim drifts over to the glass door that leads out to the deck. “Whoa. Do you have a cat?”

I blink. “Huh?”

“There is a giant orange cat on your deck.”

“Oh, that’s probably Stella, the neighbor’s cat.”

“I never thought cats were very friendly, but I should warn you, this girl is inviting you all up in her business.”

I come over and stand next to him, snicker into the back of my hand. Stella is splayed out on the heated wood, both legs in the air like a Pilates queen, calmly licking her belly with languid strokes of her tongue. She pauses to stare us down before taking two more swipes at herself and yawning.

“That cat has to weigh twenty pounds, and twelve of that is fur. You’d think she’d at least find a shady place to rehearse her porn film.”

Tim hums and takes a drink, eyes arcing up to the ceiling. “But cats love the sun.”

“Do they?”

He nods. “They love the heat, anyway. They don’t mind the light, I suppose, if it gets them what they need.” He winks at me, then bites his lip to hide his shy smile.

I smirk and murmur, “Can’t blame them for that, I suppose.”

He cocks his head, letting his curls fall over his cheekbone, and his smile grows. His eyebrows raise, pulling his shoulders up with them in an exaggerated shrug. “I mean, you could _ try _to reason with her, but something tells me Stella ain’t listening.”

I clear my throat and grasp my hands behind me. “Well, I do plan to discuss it at length with her at some point, in between her coughing up a hairball on my chaise and putting her tongue to work scrubbing her asshole.”

And it happens again. He shakes with giggles, his whole body fluctuating as they overtake him, and somewhere inside of me, somewhere that feels warm and happy and at ease, I vow to figure out how many ways I can get this exact response from him every single day that I know him. Now, it feels essential.

Tim leans forward a bit and presses his fingertips to the glass. “Aw, man, I love that telescope! Are you allowed to keep it out there?”

“Well, I don’t _ keep _ it—wait, allowed?”

“Yeah, don’t places like this cite you for leaving your newspaper in the grass and shit like that?”

“Not sure, to be honest.” I strum my chin with the fingers of my left hand. “You think I can plead innocent? Blame Mars for being at its perigee?”

His lips pucker. “Nah, sounds suspicious to me.”

“Well, shit. I suppose if there _ are _ some underreported condo regs about the use and storage of astronomical stalking devices, I am in gross violation.” 

He glances at me sidelong and clucks his tongue. His voice softens, becomes a teasing drawl. “Breaking the rules already, huh? Wow. I am scandalized_, _ Armie, just _ appalled_.” He rolls his eyes.

I flatten a plaintive hand against my chest. “Okay, okay, I must confess: sometimes I do break the rules…and sometimes I even break my _ own _ rules.” I smile, raise an eyebrow. “How about you?”

“Yeah.” He flushes, ducks his head. “Sometimes.”

I nudge him with my shoulder. “_Good_.”

He licks his lips and tucks a chunk of hair behind his left ear, spins the cap off his water, swirls it back on, runs a single index finger in circles around its perimeter.

I take a deep breath. “Of course I won’t be taking an illicit plunge in _ that _ again, at least not anytime soon.” I gesture with my chin to the swimming pool down in the courtyard. “I still can’t believe I let them talk me into that.” I chuckle. Tim doesn’t. “That party was really something else. I broke more rules in that one night than I had in all of my college years.”

“Oh, is that right?” His tone is oddly tense, brittle.

Subconsciously, I tighten my stomach muscles. I don’t know what Tim thought of me after that night, but I already trust him enough that I just keep talking, hoping he will show me it is all right to be human, to be me, even after a fall. “Yeah, it’s kind of a blur, to be honest. I hope I didn’t act like too much of a fool.”

His shoulders have rounded slightly. “You…you don’t remember everything…_ certain _ things…from the party?” 

I feel the heat rise up my neck as a sinking feeling weighs down my gut. “Just some parts…I’m not…I should never drink tequila like _ ever, _ and…well, I won’t be doing that kind of thing again any time soon!” 

Tim takes the cap off of his water and downs the rest in two large gulps. He crushes the empty bottle in his hands. “Thanks for the water.” He turns toward me, but his head is lowered and his eyes are obscured under the fringe of his hair. “I guess I should get home.”

_ What? No. No no no no nononono _….

“Wait, I…I was about to make dinner…” I take a few long steps and skid across the wood floor back over to the kitchen island and dip my hand into the one bag that still sits on the countertop, root around clumsily for a few seconds. “Shit, I think I forgot to get capers, so I guess chicken piccata is out, but no worries. I can get creative…” I pull up three red tomatoes, still connected by the perfect angles of their green vine. “You want to help me make use of some contraband?” I give him a hopeful smile, praying it doesn’t look as desperate as it is, that the trembling in my hands is not as obvious as it feels.

Tim’s eyes finally meet mine, dark green jewels overwhelmed with an emotion I can’t place. The weak attempt at a smile that quirks his lips does not even come close to reaching them. “Thanks, but I just…I’ve gotta go.” He lays the gnarled lump of plastic on the very edge of the counter as he strides toward the door. I trail behind him. 

“Tim?”

He freezes halfway over the threshold. His head turns slowly, something like dread rimming his eyes when they connect with mine once more. “Yeah?”

What can I say? _ Please stay, you’re funny, you actually smell good when you sweat, I like you? _ “I just…I’ll, uh…see you around?”

“Sure. Okay.”

He slithers around the storm door, lets it slam behind him as he sprints through the front yard to the street.

Fuck.

I close the inner door slowly until I hear it click into place. My forehead thunks against it. 

And here I am, alone again, in silence. But the weight of it is harder to bear now that the space has held the lightness of his laugh and mine together. 

_ Get used to it_. Because for all the questions that have preyed upon me lately, there’s one thing I know for sure: he’s never coming back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: If you've read anything I've written about these two, you already know what Armie clearly does not... :)
> 
> I give a tip of the hat to T.S. Eliot here, borrowing his image of the Grim Reaper as a patient and ironic suitor.
> 
> My parents once owned a 1982 Chevy Impala; it was the worst car in the entire world. Shit away, birds!


	5. Dinner for Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Milton Berle once said, if opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door; still, perhaps Armie should put his tools away and open his ears...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing but shameless gratitude for your continued support of this story; thank you for all of your wonderful comments!
> 
> And Willowbrooke continues to be a patient wonder who keeps me on the on the proper path! ❤️

I am slumped on the chaise on my deck when I hear a knock at the front door.

Tim had left—no, make that ‘ran for his fucking life’—about an hour and a half ago, and I was in no mood for company.

_ Fuck off, world. Just leave me be_.

But who could blame him, really? Tim is a nice guy, and he deserves to have friends who are lively and interesting and solid, not to be saddled with the weird loser who can’t even manage to make it through one week in the neighborhood without making an ass of himself.

The second round of thuds is louder than the first.

Shit.

It might be Carol, and she’ll have my head if I ignore her.

I drag myself off the chair and clomp to the front door, preparing my best imitation of a frightening glower. I doubt I can pull it off, but being a fucking giant has to have its dividends at some point, something with greater interest rates than ‘puts star on Christmas tree without a chair.’

With a deep inhale, I rip open the door.

It’s Tim.

He’s showered, evident in the damp tinge of his perfectly gelled curls, yet a thick one hangs in a corkscrew in the middle of his forehead. He’s changed into jeans and a soft black sweater with grey stripes, a trippy pair of rainbow Vans on his feet.

He looks amazing.

I stumble out onto the porch. “Hi.” It’s all I can think to say.

“Hi,” he replies. His head is tilted down slightly toward his right shoulder, and he looks up at me through the thick lashes of his left eye. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“No, umm…” I shrug. “I was just…kind of… sitting out back…having a pint…”

He looks down at my hand and pauses, and when he looks up at me again, his eyes are smiling. “Country Vanilla, huh? Dude, you really know how to live it _ up _.”

My neck prickles with heat. “Well, it’s like…it reminds me of the stuff my grandpa used to make when I was a kid…you know, in one of those churns that you crank by hand…with the ice and salt and…”

“Oh. That’s…that’s cool.”

I huff a laugh, scrub at the cement with my toe. I crush the empty ice cream container in my fist. “Tell me the truth: am I the world’s most boring person or what?”

His mouth drops open. “What? No, Armie, stop!” His toe scooches over and bumps mine. “It’s got to be the world’s most popular flavor for a reason.”

“It lacks pizzazz, though, right?” I nudge his shoe. “You’d probably pick something exotic…like double fudge cookie dough or black forest cherry, or…”

“Nah,” his curls shake, “cookie dough is gross, and…” He looks me directly in the eye. “…cherries just aren’t my thing.” He scratches at the back of his head. “But…uh…” He holds up a jar of capers. “I _ do _ love chicken piccata, and I found these in my sister’s pantry, so…” I feel a smile forming on my face. “You still want to…?”

I stare at the jar.

_ Don’t cry. _

_ You’re a full-grown adult man. _

_ Do. Not. Fucking. Cry_.

I turn away toward the door and hold it open. “Come on, then.” My voice grates like a rusted Brillo pad. “You gotta help me, though. I’ll pound, you flour. That’s the house rules.” I don’t trust myself to look at him, so I rub my face against the back of my hand where it sticks to the door in a bloodless grip.

I hear his treads grind on the porch, and as he steps past me through the door, he scoffs, “So _ bossy _…” and I have to physically push my cheeks together to get my ridiculous smile under control. By the time I am able to follow him inside, he’s already kicked off his shoes and shuffled down the hallway to the kitchen.

I flick on the stereo, let some innocuous channel play in the background while we work at the island, and as the chicken browns, I roll a couple of lemons across the granite while Tim opens a bottle of Coke and slides onto one of the stools.

“So Carol told me that you’re living here in your sister’s place?”

He presses his lips together and nods. “Yeah, Pauline.” He runs his hands fitfully down the tops of his thighs. “She is a documentary filmmaker, and she’s working on a production in France right now. She let me move in with her about six months ago when I broke up with my boyfriend.”

I feel a zip of electricity in my gut. “Oh, I’m sorry.” _ Am I, though? _

His lips twist, tasting the stale copper of bad memories. “Nah, it was…” He shrugs, “We weren’t right for each other. It was for the best.” I just nod and watch his face heat as it flickers through a series of emotions. “We never really…_ connected, _you know? At least not the way that…”

He cuts himself off with a hard swallow and drops his head to stare at his hand as it picks at the seam of his jeans. _ Oh, fuck _. And this isn’t what I want to do to him, torture and embarrass him with visions of what he’d clearly rather forget. “No, no, I get it, believe me. There’s nothing that can…you can’t force it to happen, right? It doesn’t work that way. I mean, I’ve had my share of relationships that were never a fit from the start.”

He jerks his head up then, and his expression is so fragile, eyebrows stitched together just enough, lips parted with no words to say. Does he think I’m making fun of him? Or chastising him? I wince, know I have put more out there for him, show him the same vulnerability he’s allowed me to see. Hell, I’m not sure I could hold it back, even if I wanted to. “See, Tim, I…I am the brand of idiot who tends to fall hard, like _ really _ hard, and…ahh…that doesn’t necessarily mean that the other person will do the same, sooo…” I smirk and run my arm up and down my side, “Let’s just say all of _ this _ makes a pretty sickening thud when it hits the ground at a hundred miles an hour.”

His eyes search mine for a moment, so I stare back, keep my expression as open as I can, let him read my sincerity despite the blush I know has overtaken my neck in bright red splotches. Finally, his posture relaxes, and he gives me a sad smile and the ghost of a nod, pulls his upper lip into his mouth and holds it with his teeth. 

_ Give him some space, jackass_. I clear my throat. “So, this sister of yours…what’s she like?”

His expression turns to mirth. “She is _ a lot. _ She’s only four years older than I am, but she acts like she’s my mother.”

I smile and run my knife through the puckered rind of the lemon. “Oh, I…I kind of like that.”

He smirks as he digs the green twist-tie from under the translucent fruit bag and wraps it around his finger. “Well, _ you _ might, but it’s a pain in my ass.”

I chuckle. “Oh, come on, she’s just looking out for you! That’s a good thing.”

He blushes, flips the ring-shaped tie on and off his fingers like it’s jewelry he’s trying to fit. “I guess.” He glances up at me quickly, then down to his hands, and I can feel the fondness radiate from him like the heat from the stove burner. “I guess she always has.” His nose crinkles. “When I was in first grade, she beat up a kid in my class who nicknamed me ‘Timmy Chala-meat’ and chased me around the playground with cold cuts in his hand, screaming it at me.”

“_Chala-meat_?” A grin spreads across my face. “That’s so…that’s not even clever!”

He giggles. “I know, right?”

“And what did she do to him for that moment of genius?”

“Gave him a black eye and knocked out one of his front teeth.”

“Damn! She’s a beast!” I push the chicken around and add an extra splash of wine. “Wonder if he thought it was worth it.”

“Probably not since the big hole in his mouth gave him this weird whistle when he’d talk, like he was Bugs Bunny. It stayed that way until his permanent tooth grew in the following year.”

“And what was Bugs’ actual name?”

Tim sticks his tongue out and splutters, “Steven Shuster.”

We both laugh hard, and I have to lay down my tongs and lean on the heels of my hands on the countertop. Tim’s head falls onto his forearms and rolling around, that all-encompassing shimmy that I’ve come to love, and when he lifts his face again, his eyes glisten as he beams at me, his top teeth sunken into his bottom lip in an effort to reign himself in, his curls falling around his cheekbones, a perfect mess. 

_No, that’s not it. There’s no mess to him at all. He’s only_ _perfect._

I plate our food, and we set up on opposite sides of the table in the small dining area off the kitchen. 

He asks me some terribly polite questions about my work, and I do my best to tell him with a straight face how engrossing the world of personal and corporate finance is, the zen of studying evolving tax codes, which I am sure thrills him as much as reading the terms and conditions for his credit cards. Then, he tells me he plans to start his MFA at Tisch in the fall, that acting is in his blood. He ticks off the titles of some of the theatre productions he’s been in, and I’m too embarrassed to tell him that I’ve only vaguely heard of a couple of them, so I make a vicious mental note to Google my ass off in the next few days so I don’t look like a total cultural moron.

“Do you want to do films as well?”

He shrugs. “Sure, I wouldn’t mind it. Film is such a flexible genre. There are so many creative avenues to pursue there, and it’s great for exposure.” 

I see something in the curves of his downcast face, the way he purses his lips. “But?”

He glances up at me and back down to his plate. Then he laughs. “All right, I don’t know if this is dumb or what, but…I just really love _ theatre _—the energy of the live audience, the way you can craft a part over a period of weeks…My agent would probably slap me and call it career suicide, but that’s really where I want to be. That’s where I see my career evolving over time.”

“Do it,” I say before I can second-guess anything. “If you love it, do it, and if anyone tells you to stop, tell them to fuck off.”

He laughs, gives me a warm smile. “Thanks for your confidence, but you don’t even know if I suck or not.”

“You don’t.” I stare at him until he sees I’m sincere, until he blushes, lays down his fork quietly and takes a drink. I give him an out and shift the subject slightly. “I don’t know how you do it, really. I could never get up in front of a bunch of people like that.”

“Why not?” His head quirks. “I’ve been super shy all my life, and acting is… it’s freeing.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely! It’s amazing what you can do when you’re a character and not yourself, but at the same time, you have to ask your _ real _ self for help all along the way, or the character will never get a chance to live.”

I blink at him, take a while to cut myself a new bite of chicken only to leave it on my plate. “That makes perfect sense to me. I mean, I never quite…I could never do it myself, but that only makes it more…that’s…wow.” I shove the chicken in my face to cover for my deplorable void of rational vocabulary because _ fuck me _ if this guy isn’t brilliant. Tim’s eyes search my face, and he drops his chin into one hand and chuckles, probably reading my idiocy keenly and trying not to make it known to me.

Then, like the cascade of a waterfall, the smile on Tim’s face slowly falls, and he puts his fork down and sits back. “Look, Armie…can I say something?”

I stop chewing and stare at him. _ Oh, no_. I give him a slight nod because my throat is too dry to swallow, and I’m positive I would choke.

He compresses his lips briefly and blows a forceful breath through them. “I’m sorry.”

I just blink at him stupidly because I still can’t swallow, and I forget how to use my arms to reach for my drink.

“I’m sorry I left here before…like that. I’m new around here, too, and I know what it’s like to not know anyone and feel alone and…you were trying to talk to me and I just _ bailed _ on you, and that really sucks.”

Blood flows again to my fingers, so I grab blindly for my bottle and gulp down some soda. “It’s okay.”

He shakes his head vigorously. “No. No, it’s not. Fuck, I—I was just _ scared_. I was so afraid that…” He tips backward in his seat and lets his eyes scan the ceiling, searching helplessly for the rest of his words there.

After a few moments of silence, I feel myself lean closer. “Afraid of what?”

His hands scrub through his hair, leaving it a confused thicket. “Never mind, that’s not—“ His gaze meets mine once again. “I just don’t want you to think I’d judged you in any kind of way.” His blush pinks up his skin and darkens his lips. “You’re a good person, and I can tell that…well, the whole house-warming party, having the entire neighborhood invade your place—that was not exactly your idea, was it?”

I start to move my mouth before I know what to say, and my own cheeks heat helplessly. “Carol…she thought…” I shrug, shake my head and close my eyes. “I’m sorry, I…feel like such a boring piece of shit…I just…I’m not naturally a partying kind of guy, and…”

Tim flicks his curls around and scoots forward, smiles at me softly. “That’s okay, you don’t have to be. But I know you tried. You seemed to _ want _ to have fun. At least that’s how you looked, and I really get that. I _ felt _ that.”

“You noticed? You noticed me?”

“Yeah.” He fiddles with his fork, scraping sauce from one side of his plate to another. “Of course I did.” He looks up at me from under his soft fringe. “Truth is, I’m not that great at parties myself.”

His words are simple enough, but my chest feels tight. I am not sure what to do. What he offers me I have rarely gotten from anyone in my life. Honesty. Understanding. Acceptance. These are precious commodities, ones I value more than gold, and nothing feels simple about any of it. I want to run over and hug him like a python. I want to flop back in my seat and weep like a fool. 

Instead, I reach across the table, tuck my fingers up into his palm, and squeeze his hand. “Thank you, Tim. Really. _ Thank you_.”

He stares at our hands for a few seconds, and I worry that I’ve overstepped my bounds and ruined it, but just before I can retract my arm, he turns his and strokes his thumb back and forth across the inside of my wrist. He meets my eyes, and we share a quiet smile.

Something inside me settles, gives me permission to exhale long and slow, like I’ve finally gotten my balance back after toeing dangerously at the edge of a towering cliff, like I’ve settled back onto solid ground and can enjoy a view few others get to see.

I slide my hand away and start to gather our dishes. He gets up and helps, and we move around each other in the kitchen in a comfortable silence. We load the dishwasher together. He pours in the detergent; I close it up and start the cycle.

When I turn around, he’s leaning his elbows on the island, watching me. He smiles again, and it’s like he’s just _ happy_, like he can’t help himself and not smiling isn’t even an option for him. How does he do that? How does that feel? And it spreads through him, down to his feet, which flip heel to toe in a diagonal before he twists his hips and spins like a top.

I smack my forehead with my palm. “Oh, God, I _ knew _ it.” 

“Knew what?” His jaw juts out as he undulates his shoulders and slides back the other direction.

“You just _ have _ to be a killer dancer, don’t you?”

He cocks his head at me, expression deadpan. “What can I say?” He plants two fingers on his sternum and flicks his head back and forth, “When I play,” a wiggle of his eyebrows, “I slay.”

I just shake my head and laugh.

He motions to me with a flapping hand. “Come on, come on, I’ll show you.”

“Huh?”

The hand flaps quicker. “Get over here. Let me show you some moves.”

My eyes fly open. “No. Ohhh no, thanks, but no. Like, _ hell _ no. I’m good over here.” Distantly I can feel my legs glue themselves to the lower cabinet doors. “You go right ahead.”

He plants his hands on his hips, grinning at me. “Armie!”

“No way, Timmy. No fucking way.

“_Seriously? _”

“Look, do you have any idea what it’s like to be the tallest guy on a dance floor? It is not a fucking privilege, I’ll have you know, _ especially _ if you dance like an antelope that just got rammed by a Jeep. I still have PTSD from my high school prom.”

He huffs, then spins around and rushes into the living room to tick up the volume on the stereo, and flies back to his spot on the wood between the island and the sofa’s back. “Let’s go, I love this song!”

My nose scrunches up. “No you _ don’t_! You’ve never even _ heard _ of…” I squint to read the name on the display, “Terence Tr…Whoever.”

“And what, you _ have_?” His hips move in a slow figure eight, lips pressed together in a smirk. “Doesn’t mean I won’t _ sign my name_…” and the last three words he sings in time with the song as it repeats the refrain, before he spins on one foot and lets his shoulders ripple, carrying the motion down to his fingertips.

I cup my hands around my mouth and whoop, “Work it, Terence! _ Oh _ yeah!”

He twirls back around and points at me. “Dude, get your antelope ass over here _ now_.”

“Nope. Not gonna happen.”

“Oh, it’s happening.”

He marches over and grabs my hand, dragging me with him to the open floor. “Okay, show me what you’ve got.”

I slump my shoulders and squeeze my eyes shut, gurgle out, “Fuck, are you really making me do this?”

He just beams at me and resumes his undulations. _ Hell with it_. I start to move side to side, one foot meeting the other. Soon my arms raise above my head, and I pump them gently to the beat. My eyes close.

Behind us, Terence just keeps on crooning:

_ It’s much too late to turn away _

_ We started out as friends… _

Ok, maybe this isn’t so bad.

When I open my eyes again. Tim is frozen next to me, his eyes wide, mouth in a huge grin that I swear shows every one of his teeth, gleaming like perfect little Chicklets under the overhead lights. My motion slows uncertainly. _Oh, Jesus, is he going to laugh at me now? Not you, too, Timmy. Please_. But all he does is leap up, tucking his knees, and when he hits the ground, he springs backward and throws his arms forward, does some kind of exaggerated running-man past me, before he circles back to where I am and starts to copy my movements. Our eyes connect, and he licks his lips, “See what I mean? This is great!”

I blink at him, at the unadulterated joy that spills from his pores, and I can’t do anything but grin back and fall into sequence with him and the beat.

I am sure I look like an imbecile, the most painfully white man in America, but right now, I couldn’t care less.

We waggle our way through a couple more songs before the music changes to something that makes both of us gag, so he flounces over and turns the volume down. I grab us each a new drink, and we flop onto the couch on opposite ends and kick our legs up in the middle.

Tim knocks my foot with his. “You’re a natural, man. Told you.”

I snort, “You’re full of shit,” and take a swallow of Coke.

His jaw drops. “I mean it! You and the beat?” He crosses two fingers. “You’re like _ this_.”

I laugh and drop my head back on to the pillow. “All right, all right.” I sigh. “Confession time: that was fun.” I pick my head up to look over at him where he’s sunk into the cushions like he’s actually comfortable here, like he just _ fits_, and my heart skips a beat because I can’t seem to remember a time when we weren’t friends, when he wasn’t a part of a place I call home.

Suddenly, I know what I have to do. 

I want to tell him everything.

He’s the only one I can tell.

I scrub my face with my hand, throw my legs back down to the floor. I rest my elbows on my thighs. “Tim, I have something else I need to confess.”

He giggles, “Uh-oh. Wait, do you sing opera on weekends?” He sucks in a breath and sits up fast, bumping his shoulder into mine. “Oh! I got it—are you a clogger? Please say you’re a clogger.”

I roll my eyes and nudge him back. “_No_, I’m no such thing, and shame on you for thinking it.”

When my chuckle dies, I glance over at him, and he sees it in my eyes. His face sobers immediately, and he settles in with his thigh warm against mine. “Go ahead, Armie. You can tell me anything.”

_ God, I hope so_.

“That night…the night of the party? Something happened.” I feel him stiffen next to me, but I just plunge on before I can chicken out. “After I did the whole stupid pool thing, I came back up to the house, and…I thought I was going into my room, but I ended up in the guest room.” I swallow thickly. Tim is silent next to me. “I was kind of overwhelmed, and I didn’t realize…I flopped onto the bed and…someone else was in there, a man…”

Tim guzzles his can of soda but says nothing.

“He and I…we…I mean…”

“I _ get _ it, Armie,” Tim says quietly.

I sigh and bury my face in my hands. “I know, I _ know_…it was my party, and while everyone in the neighborhood was out here, I was in there…” I rub my eyes viciously. “Look, I know I should be embarrassed about it, Tim, but this guy…” I exhale slowly. “He is fucking _ amazing! _ I can’t even believe…I’ve never felt so…” I swallow at the sand in my throat. “It was not like anything I’ve ever experienced in my entire _ life_.” I exhale hard. “But here’s the kicker: I don’t have any idea who he is! It was dark, my eyes were closed the whole time, and I just…we…goddamnit, it was just so _ right… _ and this absolutely _ incredible _ person is out there somewhere, and _ god_, I really want…”

Tim jumps up and starts pacing around in front of me. I’m too afraid to look at his face, so I fold my hands together in front of my mouth and stare at the Berber carpet. Finally, he coughs, “Keep going. What is it you want?”

“I want to find him.”

“And you…you don’t know anything about him or even what he looks like?”

“No,” I groan. “No, I don’t, and it has haunted me ever since. He might not want anything to do with me now, but I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m sure he’s so _ far _ out of my league it’s ridiculous, but I still…” I clench my jaw. “I have to know, all right? I want to look him in the face and know for sure if we could ever be…” I finally manage to glance up at him. “Is that crazy?”

His shoulders are drawn up to his ears. He’s facing away from me, towards the dark cavern of the fireplace. “No, that’s not crazy at all. If this guy is…if he is _ really _ all you’ve said, I wouldn’t blame you.” His voice is gravelly, but he’s not bolted on me, so I’m clinging to hope, in more ways than one.

Fuck, I might as well just put it out there. “I’m going to try to find him,” I say as firmly as I can. “But I don’t have any idea what to do or where to start.” I buzz a hand through my hair and fling myself back on the couch cushions. “Tim, could you—”

He holds up a hand, and I shut up immediately. I don’t know what that means. Is he thinking, or is he sick to the death of the sound of my pathetic voice and just wants it to stop? Probably the latter. Yeah. Got to be that. Maybe I should—

Tim wanders over to the sliding glass door that leads to the deck, looking down at the lights around the pool at the complex’s heart. I resist the urge to fill the silence with more words, with nonsense that would only make me seem more ludicrous than I already feel. Absently, I realize I’m even holding my breath.

I can see his reflection in the glass. I can see his eyes sink closed for a moment, and they pinch tight before he turns around and smiles placidly at me. “Sure, Armie. I’ll help you if you want. We can try to find your man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Tim's look here, I had in mind the third image [here](https://www.vogue.co.uk/news/article/timothee-chalamet-4000-miles), the one on the swing.
> 
> The song that the boys dance to is ["Sign Your Name"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_d8xoDQTWQ) by Terence Trent D'Arby (1987).


	6. Pumped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim tries out a Plan A to help Armie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still reading this, I am most grateful, and I'll never have enough gratitude to Willowbrooke for her beta skills!

Some nights, I dream of him.

And I marinate in it, at the way more details can filter in when I am not fighting to peel them back from where they wallpaper my heart in a thick and permanent paste.

How his hand ran along my forearms while I held him, the clutch and drag of them as we moved together. The small sounds he’d made, and the way he’d turned his head to muffle himself in the flesh of my neck, my cheek, so that he breathed every one into my ear, and they echo there still.

_ Yes…my god, _yes…

Arms around my waist while I laugh, bent over the stove with a spatula in my hand, the point of a chin on my shoulder.

Brushing his fingers through my hair as we share a pillow, murmuring to me, and I’m so tired I can’t follow the content of what he says, but I feel the absorption of his voice into my skin, sounds of dark velvet dipped in warm waters.

The moods mix and bleed, dissolving the seam between what had been and what could be. Am I remembering or merely projecting? When my brain gives up, capitulates to the rest of me so that my heart can play, I have no way to know. Only one thing never changes: I’m happy, I’m so _ happy_, and it’s rare enough to be exhilarating, night after night, the high of a drug that only crashes if I awaken.

It makes even a perfect sunrise bittersweet.

So I lie here and squeeze my eyes shut, wanting to sink back into it, to live just a few more minutes in it before I am forced to rejoin the real world, the one where his lips aren’t smearing across my cheekbone, where his hands aren’t bracing at my waist so he can pull himself up to kiss my neck.

Damn it. I groan at the orange beams that poke through the blinds.

_ What’s the use? _ I crawl out of bed, stumble to the bathroom. I only peek open one eye to check my aim.

I’m standing over my coffee maker, listening to it grind and hum with my forehead flat to the cabinet doors, when my phone buzzes.

<<Hey, you busy today?_ >> _

I smile. Tim and I had exchanged numbers last night before he left, just before he’d slid into his shoes by the door and stared at me for long moments, like he had something he needed to tell me, but then he’d just blinked at me with that small smile and said, “Dinner was really good. And, thanks. Thanks for…letting me be here.”

And he’d gone then, before I could tell him that it had tasted so good because we’d made it together, that it was the most fun I’d had in ages. Before I could thank him for not hating me. Before I could tell him he is welcome here anytime…all the time.

Before I could let on that I’d forgotten what it was like to have a real friend.

<Is that an offer?>

<<Sorta. Got an idea to help you, if you want>>

My pulse quickens, so I deflect. <Does it involve bacon?>

<<How about seitan?>>

I feel my grin expand until I fear my dry lips will crack under the strain.

<My favorite!>

<<That’s what I heard, but sorry, some shithead bought all the vine-ripened tomatoes, so I guess we might as well forget it>>

My laugh is so loud it echos against the granite and stainless steel. <Fuck that guy! What a giant dick>

<<THAT’S WHAT HE SAID 😎>> 

I snort. <No way. No fucking way you’re actually cheesier than me>

<<🧀 Bet>>

<Ok, I’m starving now. I’m about to fight Stella for some old Meow Mix.> My thumbs hover over the keyboard before clicking out <Join me?> and hitting send before the rush subsides, and my courage along with it.

It takes him 37 very long seconds for the three dots to appear. <<Not for that, but I think warm croissants could be arranged>>

I bite my lip. <Could be?? Don’t toy with my innards, Tim>

<<COULD BE. If you’re a good boy>>

I stare at my phone open-mouthed until I feel the saliva start to gather on my tongue.

<<I mean, everyone needs to get his hands on a warm croissant every now and then, Armie… 😜>>

_ Yes. _

_ Yes, they do_.

I blush, harder than I should. Because I’m a fucking asshole for even—

Stop.

Palm the phone. Crack my knuckles. One breath in, leak it out slow. <At this point, I could eat plywood, so get over here! Coffee’s brewing, door’s unlocked>

The phone clatters to the granite. I leave the brewer to its magic, and I head to the bathroom to brush my teeth and splash some water on my face. I stare at my reflection. Should I put on actual clothes? Do I have time for a shave? My lips flatten into a line. Nah, then I might as well hang a neon sign around my neck that screams TRYING TOO HARD. _ Don’t make it weird_.

I run my fingers through my hair a few times and head back to the kitchen to warm up a couple of mugs. I’m scrolling through some headlines a short time later when I hear the front door creak open ahead of a hesitant voice. “Armie?”

Sliding off the stool, I call, “Sorry, he died of malnutrition ten minutes ago.”

I hear a breathy laugh and some soft skids on the wood floor before Tim pops into the kitchen. He tugs his hair to tuck it behind his left ear. “Guess that means these are all mine?” He hoists a brown paper bag onto the island and bites his bottom lip, which only accentuates the magic of his irresistible grin.

I fill his mug nearly to the top and slide it over to him. He wraps his fingertips around it and sighs with relief. And it _ is _ only his fingertips because the rest of his hands are lost in the arms of the giant Knicks sweatshirt he wears over a white t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants that also swamp him. I smile when I see him, a reflex I have yet to control. Is this how he wakes up every day? My impulse is to hug him tight, to find the lost edges of him inside the nest of clothes, to fold the fabric back and appreciate the beautiful lines nature gave him. Doesn’t he own anything that fits him? And why does it actually feel like _ everything _ fits him, like he’s just that charming, that everything he touches wants him, too?

“Milk or sugar?”

He bobbles his head. “Yes, both, please.”

I grab them, and he pours in a small blob of milk. Then, I watch in semi-horror as he loads in enough sugar to make Buddy the Elf beg for mercy. He stirs it round and round, then licks off the spoon before taking a huge slurp and licking his lips. When he sees me still staring, he freezes. “What?”

I can’t stop the flicker of a smirk. “If you don’t like coffee, you could’ve told me. I’m happy to make you something else.”

He shrugs. “I like coffee.” He digs into the bag he brought and pulls out a croissant nearly the size of his head and rips off a corner with his teeth. Steam floats up from its exposed interior.

“Anything you have to completely mask the flavor of just so that you can stomach it is _ not _ something you like. If you’re a sugar addict, why don’t you just have hot chocolate?”

Tim scrunches up his nose. “But that’s like…_ chocolate_.”

“Good call.” My deadpan expression is murder to keep in place.

“Shut _ up_.” He rolls his eyes. “Well, how do _ you _ take it?”

“How do you think?”

His eyes narrow. “So strong and thick that you practically need to cut it with a knife first?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Are we still talking about coffee?”

His face flames, and his jaw hangs loose as he searches desperately for a comeback. I smile into my mug and take a sip, relish the way he blinks rapidly when he’s flustered, the helpless gurgle that ekes out of the back of his throat. But I crack, drop my cup with a thud and giggle. 

He sighs and takes an aggressive bite of his pastry.

“You gonna let me have one of those or what?”

He shoves the bag at me before he gulps down mouthfuls of his coffee and groans, “_Delicious_,” while tossing me a sassy chef’s kiss, and I laugh harder.

We are each well into our second “golden puff of heaven” (which is my official nickname for these wonders) when I finally brush the crumbs from my mouth and ask, “So don’t keep me in suspense. To what do I owe the pleasure of this breakfast of champions?”

“I thought you might need your strength today because…well, where would a guy perfect for Armie Hammer probably spend his Saturday mornings?”

“In jail, waiting for bail?"

He smirks at me. “Tempting, but how about if we try the gym? You know he’d want to make himself all Captain America for you. Five seconds of looking at you would’ve sent anyone scrambling for a barbell.”

I look at him like he’s just grown a second nose. “Yeah, right.” Truthfully, I’d forgotten about that, the area off the clubhouse that has Cybex and free weights and other kinds of exercise equipment. I haven’t been in there since Carol walked me through as a part of her tour when I was a prospective buyer.

“Worth a try, though? You think? Maybe?” Timmy’s face is cinched up, like he’s worried he’s screwed up, like he’s about to slink off the stool and disappear out the door. 

And wouldn’t that be great? I tell Tim my secrets and ask him for help, and he is kind enough to indulge me, and then I make him feel like he’s dumb for even trying.

I nod firmly. “Definitely worth a try.” I put my mug in the sink. “I’ll go get dressed.” I cross the living room and pause at the mouth of the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. “Any advice? I mean, does it matter what I wear?”

He turns to look at me, and I see his eyes scan me up and down. “No,” he says finally, “not…” He scratches his eyebrow with the edge of his thumb. “Not one single fucking bit.”

_ He means it _ . Already, Tim is too good to me. _ Or is it that he’s too good _ for _ me? _

I smile a thank you, a closed-lip smile because if I open my mouth, he’ll see it, so before he can notice my eyes glisten, I turn and head down the hall.

* * *

We wind our way around the pool and bypass the open door of the clubhouse, going to the dedicated door for the Exercise Room. One wall is entirely mirrors, which makes me immediately want to turn and run, and they accentuate how the chrome-plated machines gleam under the bright lights. The room is large enough for people to spread out, and there are about fifteen other people in various stages of sweat degradation, metal clanking against metal around a buzz of chatter.

Timmy sheds his sweatshirt, shoving it into a cubby in the entry alcove, and smoothes out his t-shirt. “Where do you want to start?”

“I have no idea. What do you usually do when you come here?”

He puts his hands on his hips. “Seriously, man? Do I look like a gym rat to you?”

I hold my arms out to the side. “What, do I?”

His eyes bug. “Ahh…so, biceps…shoulders…six-pack? _ Duh_, Armie.”

I shove his shoulder, and he snickers. I point to the opposite corner of the room. “How about we warm up on a treadmill and survey the room?”

I climb on the machine closest to the wall, and Tim waits while the woman who’s just finished on the one next to mine cleans down the arms of it with a sanitizing wipe. When she is done and turns, she smiles brightly. “Hi, Timmy! How _ are _ you?”

It’s then that I recognize her. She’s the one he’d been playing pool with at the tropical party, the shapely one in the Daisy Duke’s. The one who’d made him laugh in the way I covet. My gut takes an acid turn when she touches Tim’s arm as they pass one another.

Tim’s cheeks pink, and he smiles shyly. “Hi.”

I’m the jealous type. Somehow, I’ve known this about myself, yet I’ve had very few opportunities to exercise it, to know its fire.

I feel it now. The stab in my chest, the grind of my teeth. But why? What is wrong with me?

As a numbers guy, I’d like to chart the development of this, the spike in its sensation, the trend over time. How big a factor is intensity? Does it impact the overall results? Am I predominantly jealous, or am I only affected when something I treasure is claimed by other hands, _ better _ hands?

I blink at the treadmill’s control board. What am I doing? _ Stop it, you raging asshole_. Doesn’t he deserve happiness, too? What kind of friend _ am _ I?

“She’s pretty,” I mumble, start pressing buttons at random. I think I just entered my weight as 130 pounds. Whatever.

Tim shrugs. “I guess. She’s friends with my sister.”

I glance over at him. He seems to have forgotten about her already. He is just playing with the incline buttons, raising the deck up and down. When he realizes that it even declines, his nose crinkles with his flash of a grin.

I chuckle to myself. He’s truly one of a kind.

We start at a slow pace. My peripheral vision registers the rhythmic flop of Tim’s hair as he ambles on the belt and works his way up to a lazy jog. It soothes me, sets the rhythm that keeps my feet stabbing down and down, again and again. He doesn’t even know, but he pulls me along, lets the emerging slick of sweat on my skin shake loose the weight that had kept my lungs from expanding past their fearful limit. Finally, I’m able to relax, to settle in and look around.

The free weights are in front of us, a long rack that extends from wall to wall, directly in front of the mirror, presumably so the users can bolster their egos under the thin guise of schooling their form. There are few things I want to do less than to watch myself lope along like Lurch in tennis shoes, so I let my eyes wander, and I pick out Dennis, who is about thirty and lives across the street from Carol’s place. He’s doing curls, the most overrated exercise known to man. There are a roster of other lifts that will work multiple muscles in the arm at the same time, giving maximum benefits in a minimum of time, while curls only focus on one. A bad investment.

For my money, so is Dennis.

He’s grunting on every flex of his arm. And his eyes shift continuously between his reflection and his muscle, like he’s at the game but can’t decide if he wants to watch the field or the Jumbotron instead.

Plus, he’s got a huge ginger mustache, and there is no way that the man I’m searching for had that monstrosity on his face. If I were to close my eyes right now, I’d still be able to feel the silk of the skin against mine that night. It’s one of the memories that I’ve held close to the surface, like a favorite blanket I could take out and cuddle when I am tired or beaten down by any of a million frustrations throughout the day.

I glance over and see Tim watching my face.

He raises his eyebrows.

I grimace, flick my head back and forth.

He chuckles, then punches down the speed on his machine, so I follow suit. We slow to a walk for about a minute, then hop off and kill the power. I clean up for both of us while Tim gets a cup of water from the cooler against the wall.

Our next move is over to the weight machines. There are a handful of guys over here, so I sit down on the bench for the fly/rear delt, and Tim hovers next to me. We both stare as some muscled guy in a cut-off and dangerously tight bike shorts does bench presses with what has to be around 300 pounds.

“Who is that?” I whisper. I don’t know if I’m impressed or appalled.

“I think his name’s Randy." 

“Figures."

He snorts. “He lives down the street from me. He has a gigantic Doberman who sits in his yard every day like a statue. It never moves. It’s creepy.”

“That also figures.”

Timmy giggles, elbows jiggling. He looks down at me. “Isn’t that your type?” 

“What?”

“_That_. Handsome…oozing testosterone…built like a fucking house…” Tim rolls his eyes. “I thought that was everyone’s type.” 

“I mean, I’ll take handsome any day, but…nah, there’s just too _ much_,” I wince. “He looks like Stretch Armstrong.”

Tim’s eyes immediately disappear into crescents, and he tucks his head into this armpit to stifle his chuckles. “Dude, I had one of those! And then my sister decided she wanted to ‘test his limits.’” His fingers flutter in air quotes.

“And?”

“She won.”

It’s my turn to laugh until the muscles around my ears ache. My eyes stay on Tim’s profile while he looks around. It hits me that I’d never get this lucky, would I? It would be downright greedy to think that the man I was with at the party, the man I’m searching so hard to find, could actually make me laugh like this, that I could just _ like _him as much as I…

_ No. Don’t do that. Don’t get greedy_. When you get greedy, you lose.

“Hi, Armie.”

I startle and bonk my head on the side of the machine. A blonde man is standing square in front of me, arms crossed, feet spread slightly. He has a flawless tan and a neat row of white teeth peeking out from between his lips as he beams at me like we are old friends. I nod at him. “Hi there. How are you?”

“It’s so great to see you here! I don’t think I’ve seen you in the gym before.”

I smirk. “Just the pool, right?”

The man laughs hard. Too hard.

“Tim and I decided to be productive today.”

“Well, I’m so glad…” He winks at me, but the man doesn’t even glance at Tim, whose lips compress to a flatline before he drifts away and sits down at the rowing machine. Without him there, I feel exposed, alone. I really want to catch his eye, but his back is to me now. I watch as he slouches forward against the chest restraint and reaches out for the padded handles. “I’m usually here a couple of times a week. I’d be happy to stop by and get you if you’d like. I’d love the company.”

I blink, try to focus on the man. He’s standing close to me, a few inches too close, if I’m being honest. Is there a reason? “Oh…well, that’s…” _ Hey, idiot, isn’t this why you’re here? _ “That’s nice of you. And this place is pretty cool. They seem to have about anything you’d need in here, right?”

He steps even closer. “They do now.” His smile turns up a notch.

“Hey, Simon, you done with these?”

The smile drops, and he turns his body to reveal a taller, thinner dark-haired man across the room, hoisting two 25-lb. dumbbells in his arms.

“Yeah, thanks, Pete,” Simon calls. He turns back to me. “So…you free on Tuesday night?”

I open my mouth, but I don’t know what to say. Am I free? Yes. I’m free every night. Do I want to be, though? Is _ this _ what I want? I make myself stare into his eyes, which are a pale grey. _ Is it you? _ Maybe he will tell me if I just wait long enough, if I just agree to let go and try to enjoy it. Shouldn’t I feel something, though? Shouldn’t that spark be there already?

Before I formulate an answer, Pete has come over, face stormy, eyebrows pulled together. “Hey, what’re you doing?” He speaks only to Simon and doesn’t address me. 

“What? We’re just talking, Peter.”

I find myself staring at Peter. He feels more familiar. Up close, he looks even more wiry and angular. He’s wearing a faded shirt with an Atari logo on it, and judging by the wisps of grey around his temples and the dark tufts growing from his nose, I’m guessing he’s around forty. I smile at him and hold my hand out. “Hi, Peter, I’m Armie.”

He turns his head and looks at me blankly for two solid beats before he takes my hand in a limp grip and shakes it once. “Hi.” Then, he looks back at Simon and cups a hand around Simon’s arm. His voice softens. “I’m going over to the bikes. You coming?”

Simon glances over at Peter’s face and sags a little. “All right.” He smiles at me as they walk away. “See you here on Tuesday? Maybe?”

I just smile and give him a little wave.

_ What in the hell just happened? _ Does this have to be so exhausting? I feel like I’m in the middle of some nighttime soap opera playing the role of the bastard son who shows up to claim his inheritance. Maybe I have a right to it, and maybe I don’t, but the battle against all of the family members who were here first could very well kill me. The melodrama of it drains me, makes my teeth ache.

I get up and find Timmy still slumped on the rowing machine. He’s not using it, just leaning heavily against it and staring at the ground. Maybe he’s between sets.

I tap his shoulder. “Hey.”

He scrambles to his feet, wipes his nose with the back of his wrist. “Hey. Uh…you okay? How’d it go?” 

I point to where the two men are on the stationary bikes and give him a quick rundown, and he nods along, lips puckered while he listens and thinks over what I’ve said. “So, what about it? You think it’s worth coming back on Tuesday? Maybe you should, just to see what happens.” He tugs his hair behind his ears in aggressive swipes that are so hard he ends up with ripped strands between his fingers.

“I don’t…I don’t know if…” I sigh. “Maybe?” I massage the bridge of my nose. “Probably not.”

Tim chews on the inside of his cheek for a couple of seconds. “Well, if the one showers, puts on some nice clothes…the other one maybe gets a better haircut, or a _ nose-hair _ cut…they wouldn’t be half bad, right?”

I shrug. “No, it’s…that would kind of make me a hypocrite, wouldn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

I turn to him so I can look him squarely in the eye. “It’s like I said before, Tim: if you have to mask the true flavor of it, it’s not something you really like.”

He seems to stand taller, looks between both of my eyes, and I see his expression change somehow, his eyes revealing bits of himself in a whir of emotions I can’t follow fast enough before he presses the corners of his lips together, making his dimples deepen, and says, “Yeah, I guess…I think you’re probably right.” He swallows thickly. “You want to get out of here?”

I nod and just barely keep myself from putting an arm around his shoulders when he gives me a small smile and turns for the door.


	7. Netflix and Thrill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armie and Tim watch a movie and dive into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was created for and is dedicated to the wonderful iworshipyou-oliver to honor her generosity and willingness to give to those in need of support. I went a bit over the word limit, so I hope that she (and all of you) will indulge me!

“Why are we watching this?” I wipe at my eye with my knuckle.

I feel his hair brush my face like the tips of a feather as he turns his head to look at me. “What do you mean?”

I sniff. “It’s so depressing.”

“Need a tissue?”

“Shut up.”

He points at the screen. “Look, he is literally at a crossroads. Ok, that’s a bit heavy-handed.”

“If you wanted to see Tom Hanks in the water, why didn’t we just watch _ Splash_?”

“That mermaid one?”

“Yeah.”

“That one is…meh.”

“At least it’s _ funny_.”

“Debatable.” A pause. “And if you suggest _ Sleepless in Seattle _next, you’re dead to me.”

I gasp. “You didn’t like that movie?”

He gurgles like he’s being strangled.

“Seriously?” A slurp of soda. “How about _ Big_?”

“Don’t make me pity you.”

“You’re such a snob!”

“No, I’m not!”

“You totally are! You, Timothée, are a movie snob.”

“Not true! _ So _ not true.”

“Are all actors like this or just you? I mean, am I allowed to like _ The Money Pit, _ or do I have to sit through a seminar on how he smirks and bobbles his head too much to sell the character?”

An imperious finger raises. “I have given you valuable tips on quality, and that is all. It is up to you how you apply them.”

“Can I apply them to _ You’ve Got Mail_?”

“Are you this corny for real?”

“It’s not corn—it’s _ romance_.”

“It’s corn.”

“You know you love it. Don’t even try to lie.”

A snort. “All right, all right—can we settle on _ Bridge of Spies _ or even _ Apollo 13_?”

“Done.”

We are slumped together on my couch, a massive bowl of popcorn between us. Timmy grabs another handful and chews slowly. After a moment, he shrugs. “So the action’s heavy, I’ll give you that. I love the character arc, though—obsessive workaholic who deals in people but not emotion, survives a plane crash and years of solitude on an island to develop quiet introspection…a loosened grip on the clock, on the rules…willing to drop the map and go on instinct? That’s amazing, I think.”

_ Amazing_? Probably not the word I would have selected. Agonizing? Terrifying? Horrifying? All of those fit. But leave it to Timmy to find the most optimistic lens from which to examine it, and suddenly, it makes my chest flare. “So, you really think a man—_any _ man—can emerge from a momentous occurrence as more aware, more appreciative, and more at peace than he’d been before?” I ask quietly.

He looks at me for a moment. “Yeah,” and his soft smile could make me think anything is possible. That all things are possible.

_ God, I hope so_.

I swallow, claw for distraction, something to lighten the mood again. “So…obligatory questions. First, what would you want to take?”

“Take?”

“Yeah, if you were stuck on a desert island, what one thing would you take?”

“That island’s not a desert. It’s a jungle.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine—_ deserted _ island.”

His mouth twists. “_He _ didn’t get a choice, though.”

I flop my hand. “Who _ cares_, Chalamet, just answer the question!”

A nose crinkle. “Ummm…a book, I guess.”

“What book? Some kind of Shakespeare compendium?” I surge up and flourish my arms, adopt the worst British accent since Dick Van Dyke. “Monologues to the sea, poetry to the birds…” and fall back heavy against the cushions in time to get a piece of popcorn lobbed at my face.

“No,” he scoffs, “more like…a book on…on ship building without tools or…any small trace of handyman-ish skills…” His eyebrows ripple.

I giggle. “You mean like _ Raft Building for Dummies_?”

His body shimmies as he laughs, legs splaying out and shifting in the tremors, and my blood warms under the glow of it. I melt further into the cushions, drawn toward him, and I don’t even realize that I’m hugging the bulk of the bowl just to get closer.

“Okay, and whose picture would you want to have?”

“Huh?”

“The picture. The one of his girl that he looks at every night. Whose picture would _ you _ want?”

I immediately realize I shouldn’t have asked that. It’s none of my business, and I watch as his easy smile fades, and his eyebrows stitch together. “I…” He licks his lips. “I don’t have one.”

“Oh…no face you’d want to see?” I’m whispering. Why am I whispering?

He meets my eyes, and his gaze is intense. Our faces are inches apart, and I never noticed before how soft his lips look when they are wet, how the delicate swoop of his Cupid’s bow cradles a smattering of freckles. His breath is warm on my cheek, his words humid and heavy. “There is one, the _ perfect _ one…I just don’t have a picture of it yet.”

And I can’t look away, can’t even move. I don’t know what that is supposed to mean, but I _ want _ to know, feel somehow like I _ ought _to know. Shit, has he already told me and I didn’t listen? What did I miss? His eyes burn, seem to reach out and pull me closer with their fire. “Armie, I—“ I see him sway gently in the shared convection, and I know I have to be wrong—I know it—but I could swear that his eyes drop to my mouth an instant before he sucks in a breath and leaps off the couch, goes for the fridge, hiking up his long basketball shorts and scrubbing viciously at the back of his head. He grabs blindly at a bottle of ketchup and stares at it for a few seconds, has to jam it back into its slot on the door before he pulls out a bottle of root beer from the top shelf and screws off the cap with a hollow laugh. “It’s too bad, really, but…you know, LeBron just doesn’t send me the selfies like he used to. Not sure why…it's so mean…” He guzzles from the bottle, foam spilling down his cheeks until he splutters and coughs, wiping at his face with the back of his hand.

I blink at him, still lost, left alone in the vacuum with no air to breathe, and I struggle to sit up like a turtle flung onto its back. I give him an uncertain smile. “He…he’s probably gone all Hollywood.” My voice is creaky and weird. “That’s what L.A. does to you, I guess…”

Tim’s teeth flash, too fast to be convincing. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.” He looks twitchy and starts to pace around. “It’s hot in here. Isn’t it hot in here? I’m just…” He billows his T-shirt a few times and rolls the root beer bottle against his forehead.

“Want me to turn up the A/C?”

He’s staring out the sliding door. “Nah, don’t bother.”

“Should we…you want to watch…umm…maybe…” I’m fumbling like a fool, digging at the cushions with blunt hands, trying to find the remote, and I know it’s late, but fuck it, I don’t understand what has just happened, and I don’t want him to leave yet. _ Don’t leave me_. “Hey, what about—“

“Let’s go for a swim.”

I freeze. “What?”

He turns around, a crooked smile on his face. “Swim. You and me.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Now.”

My stomach turns, but his mouth is twisted and wrenched to the side, his eyes luminous in the dim light, hair wild from hours of swishing it against the sofa fabric, and I am trapped. “Tim, I’m not sure…”

“Come on, Armie. No one’s around, it’s hot as hell tonight, and it will feel _ awesome_.”

I sigh and drop my head back to stare at the awkward angle of the vaulted ceiling. I could refuse, of course. I don’t exactly have the best memories of that pool, that much is for sure, but maybe it is time for a reboot on it. I have flagellated myself plenty for every aspect of that night. New memories might allow me to wash away some of the mortification for good.

Hell, it might even be fun. Because it’s not just me now. It’s us.

When I tilt my head back down, Tim’s eyes are waiting for me. He’s biting his bottom lip, the only check on his expanding grin. _ He knows he’s got me_.

He takes a step forward. “Hey, if Chuck can bust through some surf, so can we, right?”

I huff a laugh. “If I get fined or some shit, I’m blaming you.”

He giggles and tugs open the sliding door. We slip out into the night to the clucks of crickets and frogs, running on heavy feet through the grass, down the hill until we reach the ring of lights at the pool gate. It’s not locked, and there are no hours posted for use, but I glance around anyway before I flip the latch and hold the gate for Tim to scamper inside.

The concrete deck is still warm beneath us, and the sprint must have left me breathless because my lungs shudder as I watch Tim rip off his shirt and drop it on one of the loungers. His skin glows like a shaft of moonlight, and as his hands grab the elastic at his waist, I hiss, “Wait! What are you doing?”

He cocks his head. “What?”

I point with a shaky finger. “Are you…you’re not…”

His eyes roll, and he cinches his shorts off, leaving only his dark boxers behind. He wads up his shorts and tosses them on the pile, then dashes for the water, nearly turning a cartwheel in the air before smashing into the deep end and spraying water over both sides of the deck.

I tug off my own layer of clothes and sit down on the pool’s edge, letting my feet adjust to the temperature, waiting for him to resurface.

He pops up a few feet away and flicks his head to throw his hair to the side. He bobs in the waves he’s created. “You coming in?”

I smirk at him. “I’m already in.” I raise one foot and wiggle my toes at him.

“How about the rest of you?”

“What’s the rush?”

He smiles slowly, lips puckering. “No rush, no rush.”

Timmy takes a deep breath and dives down. I chuckle as I watch his shimmering form swim my way. Does he really think he can pull me in the water or something? I must have at least 40 pounds on him. When he gets about a foot from the wall, I scramble up to dive over him and take some quick strokes to the other side, and when he pops up again, he yelps, “Hey!”

I giggle and let my body go limp, let the cool waters wash over and revive me. He frogs his way to the middle of the pool, and I dip down until just my face is exposed. “_Wilson!_” I call to him in a strangled voice.

He laughs and thrashes his arm along the surface of the water to splash me.

“I guess I should be glad you didn’t pick _ Jaws _ to watch tonight.”

His teeth glint in a grin that is pure swirling evil. He dives in a flash, and before I can even react, he’s latched onto my ankle and is tugging me deeper. I roll like a crocodile under the water until I slip free, and now I’m under him. His surprised yell resonates around me, and he scrambles away, but I overtake him easily, snagging his foot, and instead of yanking it, I run my fingernail up the sole

“NO!” he shrieks.

I do it two more times.

A stream of barked curses punctuated by my name echoes down to me, and he’s thrashing so hard, I can’t believe that he hasn’t kicked my skull clean off my shoulders with his free heel. I have to breathe, so I pop up next to him. “Something wrong, Timmy?”

He holds the edge of the pool with both hands like he’s prepared to bolt at any minute. “Ahhh…nope. No, I’m cool.”

“Okay, then…” I surge up and take a deep breath.

“Wait!”

I blink innocently. “Yes?”

A hesitant arm angles toward me. “Truce?”

I beam at him triumphantly and shake his hand firmly. 

After that, we float around for a while, lazy kicks and arm sweeps around the blue heaven. We trade bad jokes. Tim tells me about taking piano lessons with his sister when they were kids, and I tell him how I had tanked at the spelling bee in sixth grade. Tim tells me how someday he might want his own theatrical production company, and I tell him about how I’d always wanted to pursue certifications for forensic accounting.

After an indeterminate length of time, our limbs grow heavy, and we make our way to the stairs. We find the heaps of our clothes and start to get dressed. I turn away to give him a measure of privacy as we trade out soggy underwear for the shorts.

“Aw, shit, my shirt is soaking wet,” he groans.

“No worries.” I toss him mine. I can already see the goosebumps on his skin. “I’ve got plenty of fur to keep me warm.” 

As he wiggles my salmon shirt over his head, I suddenly realize that it’s what I was wearing that night, the night of the party. I look up at his face, his cryptic smile. “You sure you don’t mind?” His hands fondle at the fabric as he smooths it out around his torso. “I like this shirt. It’s soft…” His voice trails off, and his hand raises to wring out a few curls of his hair before it drifts across his throat, flexing around it slightly.

The shirt hangs on him, and I see the tips of his clavicles point at me above the collar. I want to press them with my thumbs, test their sharpness beneath the thin covering of his skin. _ Why are you such a freak? _ I cough and look away, busy myself with nothing, straightening out the end of the lounger so it is perfectly in line with those around it. “No, that’s fine, really. Keep it if you want.” 

I’m not prepared for the fragile look he shoots me. “I…but you wear it all the time.”

“I know. But it looks really good on you.” I wipe my face with my palm and smile at him. “Let me walk you home.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

His answering smile makes me very glad I offered.

We are silent as we wind through the center of the complex and angle up towards the road. It is basically early morning at this point, and every window is black. It’s like we are the only people left in the world, leaving soundless footprints behind us, and when the dust settles, it will be as if we’d never been here. For some reason, it doesn’t make me feel alone.

When we get to his place, I walk him up to the porch and wait while he fumbles for his key in the pocket of his shorts. “Well, we weren’t too noisy, were we? I hope no one’s pissed at us tomorrow.”

He gives a breathless chuckle. “Nah, I think we’re good.”

I reach out two fingers and rub the hem of the salmon shirt between them. “You think this is enough of a disguise?”

His eyes round my face for a moment before his gaze grows distant, focused on something beyond me that I cannot see. “I’m pretty sure no one will ever know it was me.” He gives me a ghost of a nod, and his shoulders droop as he exhales. “‘Night, Armie,” he murmurs and disappears inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My gratitude as always to Willowbrooke for her patient word-wrangling skills! 😊


	8. Board and Confused

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armie makes some plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're still out there...
> 
> My appreciation to LivefromG25 for her extensive style sense and to Willowbrooke for her invariable clarity of vision.

It’s been a hell of a day.

Got up late by dreaming my way through an alarm so loud it could dissolve the enamel on my teeth. Burned my lip on my coffee and spilled half of it onto my legs when I jerked my arm and swerved my car into the curb. Stumbled blind into an unscheduled client meeting that lasted four hours as the man’s son, a budding tax attorney and fully-bloomed asshole, questioned every one of my recommendations as if I’d pulled them from a Cracker Jack box instead of the IRS. Missed lunch but caught a traffic jam that got me home an hour late. And I’m pretty sure I clipped the side of the garage backing into it.

Figured I might as well get the mail. An accusatory stack of bills is just what this shitstorm has ordered, right?

I trudge out to the mailbox, sticking my arm into it to flop around, but end up dipping down to peer inside anyway, as if the lack of impediments was somehow confusing to me. It feels like a theme with me—reach in blind and miss the obvious. Will I ever learn?

As I stand up and slam the mailbox door closed, I see Carol approaching on her bike. It is a cruiser nearly the size of a parade float, smooth cream color with a burgundy scrawl of the name gifted to it on the bar. It’s her preferred method of transport, I know. She glides on it around the property at least once a day, claiming it’s more elegant than a golf cart and more cooperative than a horse.

When I wave, she coasts to a stop and places her wedge heels neatly in the thin gravel of the berm. “Armie! How ya doing, kiddo? I haven’t seen you in far too long.”

I shrug. “Oh…long day, but otherwise I can’t complain.” I gesture with my chin. “Bessie still being good to you?”

She pets the handlebars with manicured nails and smirks. “Oh, hush, you know she’s my best girl.” I chuckle, and I see her eyes sharpen on me. “You _ are _ coming tonight, right?”

“Coming to…?”

“The board meeting!”

I blink rapidly. “Oh, umm…is that…I don’t really…”

“_Everyone _ comes to the board meeting!”

“They do?”

One hand plants on her hip. “Would I lie?”

“Wellll…” She punches my shoulder lightly, and I laugh. “Seriously, what’s the big deal with this, anyway? Is everyone _ that _ fascinated by what lawn company we choose?” As far as I was aware, an annual condo board meeting would be about as exciting as a colonoscopy, a haven for the nitpickers and the control freaks and much more like work than I wished to entertain during my off hours, particularly today.

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll forgive you for your blasphemy because you’ve never attended one of _ ours_. Trust me, young man, it ends up more like Prom night than parent-teacher conferences.”

“And how is that even possible?”

Carol smirks. “Open bar.” My eyebrows fly up, and she waves a hand. “Oh, it’s only _after _ the meeting and only for attendees. As soon as we adjourn, we stow the barrier wall in the back of the great room and allow exactly one hour to toast ourselves and mingle a bit. We’ve found it’s made meeting attendance skyrocket and most disagreements fizzle. No one wants to be the creep who holds up a good time by fighting over paint colors.”

“Makes sense, I guess.” I pull the newspaper out of its tube and fold it in half with my palm.

“You can bring Tim with you.” Her tone changes, softens, and when I turn to look, her eyes sparkle. “You two have gotten pretty close lately.”

I blush and stuff my free hand into my pocket. The last time she’d seen me was about two weeks ago when Tim and I had decided to go for a run together. It turned into a three-mile long game of tag, and as we’d passed her house, she’d paused while watering her hanging baskets to watch me try to run out of the death grip Tim’d had on the back of my shirt as I’d pulled him down the street and we’d laughed like idiots.

“Yeah, I mean…he’s, uh…he’s pretty cool…” I wince, follow the path of my toe as it arcs against the pavement. Jesus, I sound like a freshman in line at the school cafeteria. I clear my throat and allow myself to look fully at her face. “It’s been a real privilege to get to know him. He’s great.”

“Yes,” she nods slowly, eye pinned to mine. “Yes, he is.”

My blush amps up another ten degrees, and I don’t even know why I’m blushing to begin with. “We’ve become good friends.”

An eyebrow raises. “Have you?” It doesn’t sound like a question, so I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer, so I just nod and give her a closed-mouth smile. She fluffs the front of her hair and mutters something that could’ve been _ So blind _ before she taps the center of my chest. “Well, I want to see both of your handsome faces, so get inside and give him a call.”

She hops back onto Bessie’s ivory leather seat and waves her goodbye, bracelets jingling like wind chimes.

* * *

I drop my briefcase next to the kitchen island and carry my shoes into the bedroom. I don’t even bother to take off my suit jacket before I tip backwards and fall onto the bed, wrench my phone from my pocket and hold it over my head to click around on the screen. It’s only seconds before Tim’s face fills the screen. Or, more precisely, Tim’s hair. He’s looking down at the screen, and with every step he takes, the stretched curls bounce around his nose, giving me only brief glimpses of his left eye.

“Aaarrrmmmiiieeee!”

I smile. How could I not? The sound of his voice loosens my joints somehow, and I sink further into the mattress. “What’re you up to tonight?”

“Thought I’d study a scene I have to perform next week. Why?”

“Timothée Chalamet, have you not heard that there is a condominium association meeting at 7?”

His lips purse, twist around to both sides of his face. “Yeah, I have it marked right on my calendar. The one that my dad hung on the wall in the kitchen…that expired in 1997.”

I giggle and slap my palm to my cheek, stare at him wide-eyed. “What? You mean you weren’t going to go?”

A shrug. “I’m not a condo owner anyway, so…”

“That’s not true! You currently rep for the House of Chalamet.”

Timmy sets his phone down on what must be his kitchen counter because the next thing I see is a bowl. There’s a scrape against the porcelain, and a giant spoon appears in the frame with streams of milk sloshing over its edges. He crunches with puffed cheeks, pulling his hair aside with an index finger to peer at me. “S’re you going?” he asks around his mouthful of what I’m sure is Sugar Smacks. He bought three boxes at the grocery store last week.

I roll my eyes and tell him about my conversation with Carol and her directive. “If you’ve figured out a way to say no to her, you have to let me in on it because I’m stumped.”

He takes another scoop of cereal. “Yeah, she’s a beast. I mean, she’s great, but…a _ beast. _”

I snort and roll over, put my phone next to me so I can loosen my tie. “You’re not lying.” I turn away and slip out of my jacket, undo a couple of buttons. “I think she worries about me, though.” When I scoop the device back up, Tim’s stopped chewing and is staring at me loose-jawed, a single drop of milk hanging from the corner of his mouth. I huff warily, “What?”

He swallows. “What…where are you?”

“Bedroom.” I take off my socks one at a time and throw them at the hamper.

There’s a few moments of silence, then a quiet, “Oh.”

I undo a couple more buttons before I give up and settle on my back once more. The phone is closer to Tim’s face now, but his expression is unchanged, the milk still clinging where I’d left it.

And it shouldn’t, but my thumb twitches to wipe it up, help it into his mouth, onto his tongue.

My eyes snap up to his, and I have that feeling again, like we’re back on the couch, the credits for _ Cast Away _ scrolling in the background, and that wave hits, like the planet’s magnetic poles have shifted and pulled my blood to one side of my veins.

This time, I fall into it. I hold his gaze as I sit up fast and plant my elbows on my knees to cradle the phone in both my hands. “Timmy, do you…” I lick my lips. “Have you ever thought about—about what it might be like if…“

Timmy drags his forearm across his face. “Why does she worry about you?”

The swerve leaves me dizzy, and my head tilts. “What?”

“Carol. Why does she worry about you?”

“Oh.” I finally look away, rub the bridge of my nose to hide my embarrassment. “She just…” I look back at him, and his eyes are soft and dark, brows cricked above them. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I wouldn’t confess to him. “She knows I have a hard time…_connecting _ to people, so she’s always trying to get me to go out. She just…wants me to be happy.”

He’s chewing on the end of the drawstring for his hoodie, and based on the frayed ends, I’m guessing this is a perpetual habit. I imagine him doing this whenever he reads a new play, when he plots out a backstory for his character that the playwright never knew, or when he needs to soothe his nerves when he waits to take the stage. It’s like the strings fray so that he doesn’t have to. They carry the burden so Timmy’s mind can clear. Simple yet effective. _ Perfection_. It makes me smile again.

“This meeting,” he blurts suddenly, “basically the whole development goes?”

“Apparently.”

“So then…you must be thinking that…” He bites hard on the string and then spits it out. “Your _ person _ will be there. Right?”

My cheeks feel hot again. “Well, maybe. I don’t…but maybe.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll go with you.”

I grimace. “You sure? I mean, if you _ are _ actually busy, I seriously understand.”

“No, it’s…” He looks down for a moment, and the screen shakes like his knee is bouncing up and down. “I want that, too.”

“What’s that?

“I want you to be happy.”

I just stare at him. How can he say things like that? He really shouldn’t want that. In three decades, I’ve not figured out how to cultivate it to any lasting degree, so I’m pretty sure no one else could in three months. He’s setting himself up for failure by opting into the hopeless swirl of my missteps. Doesn’t he know that? Hasn’t he figured out that it’s not worth the trouble? Why doesn’t he run? 

But he means it. I know he does. Because he’s Tim. 

It makes my chest ache. “Tim…” The words are strangled. “Are you…I—”

“Meet you there at 6:45,” he says and disconnects the call.

* * *

The pool house is alive with voices. The convergence of this gaggle of residents without the immediate allure of exotic booze is a tense place of gossip and anticipation. There are folding chairs set up in the center of the room with a table in the front. A canvas dividing wall has been placed behind it, perhaps to focus the sound forward, but more likely to keep the bored eyes from wandering to other parts of the room and losing focus when efficiency is called for.

I pace around the entrance until I see Tim round the corner of the building like he’s emerged from the orange horizon, the sinking sun flaming the tips of his hair. He’s changed into a thick cream knit sweater and black pants with white sneakers with old-school velcro straps instead of laces. His shoulders are hunched slightly, and he looks detached and distant as his eyes scan the crowd. _ Like he doesn’t fit in? _ My throat tightens, so I take a couple of hasty steps forward and wave to him. “Hey…Timmy!”

It is a relief to see his face change when he sees me, to see the muscles soften into a smile, to see his eyes crinkle at the edges. He bites his lip and slides up next to me with a little twirl on the heel of his right foot.

I tug on his sleeve. “Okay, what’s with this?”

“What?”

I giggle, “It’s _ August, _and you’re dressed for a blizzard!”

“Well, they set the temperature in this place to like forty fucking degrees!” He gives each arm an exaggerated swipe of his hands, smoothing the fabric. “You really shouldn’t insult the threads, Armie, especially when…well…” He eyes me pointedly and twists his mouth to the side.

I put my hands on my hips. “Oh, _come_ _on, _what’s so bad about…wait, is this _really_ that bad?” I’d thrown on some dark-wash jeans and an old powder blue Oxford with the sleeves rolled to my elbows, worn tan loafers on my feet. “I guess I do look a little like someone’s wayward uncle on vacation…” He huffs, and I look up at him and sigh. “I’m hopeless, aren’t I?” 

“I wouldn’t say that.” His eyebrows rise appraisingly. “Blue is definitely your color.” 

“But, like, you’re in Rag & Bone,” then down at myself, “and I’m just _ rag _…”

“Wrong.” He shakes his head slowly and takes a step closer so that his hip brushes mine as he leans toward me, just before he angles his neck up and murmurs into my ear, “The truth is I’m in _ McQueen_, and you? You look like a fucking _ king_.”

He licks the shell of my ear, then he slides gracefully around me and drifts through the pool house door, leaves me standing there, mind wiped blank, gulping in the smell of chlorine from the waveless water and fighting the goosebumps that swamp me despite the humid air.

* * *

I slip into the seat next to Tim in the last row, where he sits calmly, arms folded, watching the figures at the front table shuffle their notes as they prepare to call the meeting to order. He looks sidelong at me, and when our eyes meet, he crumbles in a fit of giggles.

I give him a lopsided grin and shove his shoulder. “Asshole.”

A man stands and waves his arms as the room falls into silence. He looks familiar, and it takes my mind a few minutes to crawl back to the tropical party. _ Sal_. How poetic that our bartender is also the president of our condo association. “All right, everyone,” he drones. “I know there’ve been lots of questions about the new lampposts that’ll be going up in the spring. We’ve narrowed the color options to four…”

Wow. Riveting. Wait, am I asleep already?

I make the mistake of glancing at Tim, who is holding his hand up like a notebook, scribbling fake notes on it with his index finger, angling his head like a chicken with a broken neck to make sure he’s catching every critical word. I drop my head and bite my cheek, cough into my chest to cover the bark of laughter that nearly explodes into the wig of the older woman in front of me. I’m not very successful because she turns and gives me a withering glare, then moves down a few seats in a huff.

I pass on her glare to Tim, who gives me an exaggerated frown and wags an admonishing finger at me, so I reach over and grab his knee, drive my fingers relentlessly into either side of it. _ Don’t toy with someone who knows your tickle spots, Chalamet_. He gurgles and jerks around like a hooked fish, slaps at my hand desperately, until he nearly drops to the floor. I only relent when I need my hand back to clap over my mouth because we’re both wheezing so much we’re both probably seconds from being tossed out.

Deep breaths help me recover. I occupy myself by scanning the faces in the crowd. Stella Cat’s owner catches my eye, gives me a little wave around her full head of long blonde curls which, since she’s not even five feet tall, covers nearly her entire body. Ted from across the street is there, leaning forward in his seat with both palms on the handle of a long cane, one with the footed bottom that still strains under the weight of his broad frame. There’s something that warms me about it. It may not be easy for him, but if that old man still finds a way to live his best life, perhaps there’s hope for me yet.

My view is blocked temporarily when someone new drops into the open seat in front of me. The man turns and whispers a hello to me, nods to Tim, who smiles back. He’s fairly handsome, feathered sandy hair around a lightly tanned, pleasant face and straight teeth that he licks before leaning down towards me and whispers, “Did I miss anything?”

“No, you’re just in time to hear all about the brands of lawn chairs they’re considering for the pool deck next season.”

He smiles and rolls his eyes. “Thank god because, damn it, I have opinions.”

“Don’t we all.”

He huffs and turns his head around to listen to Sal, but his body remains positioned to the side, his ankle on the top of the opposite knee so that his thigh presses into the back of the chair.

Tim is surreptitiously taking him in bit by bit before he glances over at me. A shrug. _ Not bad_.

I tilt my head to the left, raise my eyebrows. _ Yeah_, _ maybe. _

His lips tighten like a rubber band, and he gives me a small thumbs-up before looking down at his feet, shifting his shoes around, readjusting the straps on his trainers one by one.

The room around us shifts and sighs a bit, the crowd restless, sensing the end is near when Sal arcs his head tiredly, “Questions and concerns? Anyone? Anyone at all?”

The man in front of us twists his head and mutters, “Bueller,” over his shoulder. I can’t help but chuckle. I swat Tim’s knee with my fingers. His mouth remains closed, so his answering smile is an upward press of his bottom lip as he resets his feet, keeps his eyes roving over the front of the room.

Sal allows a few more moments of tense silence before he finally declares, “Meeting adjourned!”

I swear that my hair is blown back by the collective gasp of relief. The chatter is immediate, spilling into the spaces around us. Everyone rises and shuffles out to the fringes of the room while a handful of efficient helpers, clap up the folding chairs and put them into their cart, others lifting the wall and carrying it out of sight. It’s like I’ve stumbled onto a stage in the middle of a perfectly choreographed dance. I half expect them to break out into song.

Sal goes back to the bar and pulls out a giant analog clock and turns the hands until it is set at 1:00. “One hour to last call, people!” he calls, and a tide of bodies converge on him.

The man looks at Tim and I. “Quite the marketing campaign, huh?”

I lean over and hold out my hand. “I’m Armie, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Scott.” He takes my hand and blushes slightly. “And…uh, we…we’ve sort of met already.” 

_ Nice job, Hammer_. “Have we?”

“I was one of the bodies to invade your place during your housewarming party.” Oh, shit. He shakes Tim’s hand. “How are you doing, Tim?”

“Pretty good.” He rocks back and forth on his toes. “Haven’t seen you around for a while. You, umm, been out of town, or…?”

He nods. “Yeah, for work.” He winks at me. “Guess that means everyone’s probably forgotten any of the crazy things I may or may not have done that night.” He gestures to the bar. “You guys feel like getting a drink?”

We follow him to the back of the room and he gets a glass of red wine and eyes me carefully as he takes a sip, smiling slowly as he swallows. “I think you should try the Riesling.”

“Oh, okay. Is…is it good?”

“It’s sweet,” he says, reaching across me to snag the glass after Sal pours it out. “Like a kiss on the cheek.” He holds the glass by its stem and offers it to me.

I’m not sure I like white wine, but I don’t want to be rude, so I take a cautious taste. “Oh, yeah, that’s not bad, actually.”

Scott smiles. “See, I have a sense about these things.”

“Hey, Timmy, you want to try—“

“Jack and Coke, Sal,” Tim says flatly. He’s leaning down with his forearms against the bar so I can’t see his face, and when Sal fills a tumbler for him, he gulps down half of it. When he stands, he pats Scott on the back. “Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit, okay?” His glance in my direction never reaches above my chin.

I open my mouth to stop him, but he turns away and winds through the crowd before I can utter a word. I can feel myself automatically shift to follow him before I feel a hand on my forearm. “You sure you don’t want to try something else?”

Scott looks at me expectantly, I suck in a sharp breath and turn back to him. “What?”

“The wine. You sure you’re good with that one?”

“Oh…oh, I…” I feel the heat creeping up my neck. “No, this is good.” I allow myself to look at him for a moment, his grey eyes kind and unassuming, his stance relaxed. He’s a nice person. Tim wouldn’t leave me alone with a shark. “Thank you. So how do you know so much about wines?”

“Kind of had no choice in the matter. My family owns a vineyard around Seneca Lake.”

“What a beautiful area! Did you grow up there?”

We talk for a while about the Finger Lakes and sailing and food pairings until we’re interrupted by Sal’s booming, “Half hour more, people!”

Across the room, I spot Timmy. He’s talking to Carol, or rather, she seems to be talking to him. She grasps both of his shoulders with tight hands and says something emphatically, giving him a light shake. Then she pulls him forward, and he slumps down into one of her tight mom hugs. My heart swells. I have been the beneficiary of Carol’s mothering on many occasions and it makes me happier than it should to know she’s looking out for Timmy as well.

Scott cracks his knuckles. Is he nervous? What’s happening? “So a friend of mine owns a gastropub in the city, and he’s got a new tasting menu. You think you might want to go with me to try it out?”

I swallow. “Umm…sure.”

He smiles brightly. “How about this Friday?”

“That sounds like fun.” Does it, though? _ Quit. Just give it a chance_. “I’d love to.”

“Great!” He puts his empty glass on the bar. “I’ve got to get going, but pick you up at 8?”

I nod, and he squeezes my elbow lightly as he walks away.

Carol sidles up with two empty glasses in her hands. “Hit me again,” she commands, and Sal snorts as he exchanges the empties for a new one with some red drink in it up to its brim. She pats my forearm, “Glad to see you here, kid.”

“I know better than to fight a hurricane.”

She cackles and waves a hand at me. “Oh, hush.”

“You seen Timmy around?”

“He asked me to tell you that he had to leave. He wasn’t feeling too good.”

My eyebrows gather in. “What? Is he okay?”

“Oh, he’s fine. Bit of an upset belly or something. I think he just needed a lie-down.” She gives me a long look, like maybe she wants to say more, but she just smiles and drifts back into the crowd.

* * *

Two hours later, I’ve showered and collapsed onto my bed. I should leave him alone if he’s resting, but I have to know how Timmy’s doing, see if he needs anything. A call feels invasive, so I send him a text.

<How’s the gut? Carol says you weren’t feeling very good>

I’m clicking mindlessly through movie channels for twenty minutes before a reply finally comes.

<<I’m fine>>

<Need soup? Crackers? Anything at all?>

<<No>>

I frown at the screen. This feels wrong. Is he really sick? Is he angry? Did something else happen?

The phone beeps again.

<<Sorry I left like that

Shoulda said goodbye

Just felt kinda nauseous>>

My skin flushes, relief and concern prickling my cheeks like razor burn. <It’s all good, Timmy, just worried about you> 

<<How’d it work out with Scott?>>

I hesitate because once I tell Timmy, it becomes real, and that scares me. My thumbs feel blunt as I clunk out the words. <We’re going out to dinner Friday night>

I wait for three dots which never appear.

<What do you think? Is that dumb? Is he an ass?>

I wait another ten minutes.

<<No 

Talked to him a few times

Always seemed nice>>

I exhale hard. <Good> I smirk to myself and add <Any idea what I should wear?>

<<A smile 😏>>

<🙄>

<<😎>>

<Help me to make good choices, fashion guru>

The dots appear and disappear three times before a message materializes.

<<You seriously want me to dress you for your date?>>

<I am your canvas, Rembrandt. Paint me>

<<🥵🥵>>

I splutter a laugh. <Ohhh yeaahhhh, my 80’s shirt collection is the sweetest around>

<<Fine

I’ll do it>>

<Yeah?>

<<Yeah>>

<How are you so fabulous?>

<<Practice>>

<😁>

<<Just

I meant it, Armie>>

<What’s that?>

<<I want you to be happy>>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting close to the end of the journey of these boys! Thank you all for your patience with them and with me!

**Author's Note:**

> Your comments are life, so please tell me what you think! If you don't talk to me, no one will! 😬


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